it is probably wholly impossible, at this day, to state, with any
certainty or precision, anything whatever that the legem terrae of
Magna Carta did authorize the king, (that is, the government,) to
do, (if, indeed, it authorized him to do anything,) in the case of
criminals, other than to have them, tried and sentenced by their
peers, for common law crimes; and to carry that sentence into
execution.

The trial by jury was a part of legem terrae, and we have the means
of knowing what the trial by jury was. The fact that the jury were
to fix the sentence, implies that they were to try the accused;
otherwise they could not know what sentence, or whether any
sentence, ought to be inflicted upon him. Hence it follows that the
jury were to judge of everything involved in the trial; that is, they
were to judge of the nature of the offence, of the admissibility and
weight of testimony, and of everything else whatsoever that was of
the essence of the trial. If anything whatever could be dictated to
them, either of law or evidence, the sentence would not be theirs,
but would be dictated to them by the power that dictated to them
the law or evidence. The trial nd sentence, then, were wholly in the
hands of the jury.

We also have sufficient evidence of the nature of the oath
administered to jurors in criminal cases. It was simply, that they
would neither convict the innocent, nor acquit the guilty. This was
the oath in the Saxon times, and probably continued to be until
Magna Carta.

We also know that, in case of conviction, the sentence of the jury
was not necessarily final; that the accused had the right of appeal