Letter from Charles Kenyon, Assistant State Public Defender Marinette, Wisconsin
The jury system has come to stand for all we mean by English justice, because so long as a case has to be scrutinized by twelve honest men, defendant and plaintiff alike have a safe-guard from arbitrary perversion of the law. It is this which distinguishes the law administered in English courts from Continental legal systems based on Roman law. Thus amidst the great process of centralization the old principle was preserved, and endures to this day, that law flows from the people, and is not given by the King. [Vol.I, p.219]...
Even the framers of the Magna Carta did not attempt to lay down new law or proclaim any broad general principles. This was because both sovereign and subject were in practice bound by the Common Law, and the liberties of Englishmen rested not in any enactment of the State, but on immemorial slow-growing custom declared by juries of free men who gave their verdicts case by case in open court. [Vol. I,p.225]