We do not desire that the unanimity of a jury should be the result of anything but the unanimity of conviction. It is true that a single juryman, or … - Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet

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We do not desire that the unanimity of a jury should be the result of anything but the unanimity of conviction. It is true that a single juryman, or two or three constituting a small minority, may, if their own convictions are not strong and deeply rooted, think themselves justified in giving way to the majority. If is very true, if jurymen have only doubts or weak convictions, they may yield to the stronger and more determined view of their fellows; but I hold it to be of the essence of a juryman's duty, if he has a firm and deeply rooted conviction, either in the affirmative or the negative of the issue he has to try, not to give up that conviction, although the majority may be against him, from any desire to purchase his freedom from confinement or constraint, or the various other inconveniences to which jurors are subject.

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About Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet

Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet, QC (24 September 1802 – 20 November 1880) was a Scottish lawyer, politician and judge. A notorious womaniser and socialite, as Lord Chief Justice he heard some of the leading causes célèbres of the nineteenth century.

Also Known As

Native Name: Alexander Cockburn, 12. Baronet
Alternative Names: Alexander Cockburn Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn, of Langton, 12th Bt.
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Additional quotes by Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet

Whatever disadvantages attach to a system of unwritten law, and of these we are fully sensible, it has at least this advantage, that its elasticity enables those who administer it to adapt it to the varying conditions of society, and to the requirements and habits of the age in which we live, so as to avoid the inconsistencies and injustice which arise when the law is no longer in harmony with the wants and usages and interests of the generation to which it is immediately applied.

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Although the decisions of the American Courts are of course not binding on us, yet the sound and enlightened views of American lawyers in the administration and development of the law—a law, except so far as altered by statutory enactment, derived from a common source with our own—entitle their decisions to the utmost respect and confidence on our part.

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