Cite as: 526 U. S. 227 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
that the focus of those efforts was principally the juries' control over the ultimate verdict, applying law to fact (or "finding" the law, see, e. g., id., at 301), and not the factfinding role itself.8 There was apparently some accepted understanding at the time that the finding of facts was simply too sacred a jury prerogative to be trifled with in prosecution for such a significant and traditional offense in the common-law courts.9 That this history had to be in the minds of the Framers is beyond cavil. According to one authority, the leading account of Zenger's trial was, with one possible exception, "the most widely known source of libertarian thought in England and America during the eighteenth century." L. Levy, Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History 133 (1963). It is just as much beyond
8 The principle that the jury were the judges of fact and the judges the deciders of law was stated as an established principle as early as 1628 by Coke. See 1 E. Coke, Institutes of the Laws of England 155b (1628) ("ad questionem facti non respondent judices; ad questionem juris non respondent juratores"). See also Langbein, The English Criminal Trial Jury on the Eve of the French Revolution, in The Trial Jury in England, France, Germany, supra, at 34, n. 60. Even the traditional, jury-restrictive view of libel law recognized the jury's authority over matters of fact. See, e. g., King v. Francklin, 17 How. St. Tr. 626, 672 (K. B. 1731) ("These [publications and the words having the meaning ascribed to them] are the two matters of fact that come under your consideration; and of which you are proper judges. But then there is a third thing, to wit, Whether these defamatory expressions amount to a libel or not? This does not belong to the office of the jury, but to the office of the Court; because it is a matter of law, and not of fact; and of which the Court are the only proper judges"). Thus most participants in the struggle over jury autonomy in seditious libel cases viewed the debate as concerned with the extent of the jury's law-finding power, not its unquestioned role as the determiner of factual issues. See T. Green, Verdict According to Conscience 318-319 (1985). Some influential jurists suggested that it might also be seen as a struggle over the jury's right to find a particular fact, namely, the required criminal intent. See 10 W. Holdsworth, History of English Law 680-683 (1938).
9 See 4 Blackstone 354 ( jurors could choose to stop at special verdicts if they wished).
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