One of the worst things that can happen to a person is they buy a drink and then accidentally knock it over after only having a couple of sips
Meredith
@ameredol.bsky.social
167 followers 208 following 56 posts
Software/DevOps in the public sector. Easily distractable.
![Indeed, it was as long ago as 1670 that the independence of the jury was definitively established
beyond question. William Penn and William Mead were Quakers; they were prosecuted for
preaching to an unlawful assembly. It was a crime in 1670, this is about 20, 30 years after the
end of the English Civil War, to have a religious assembly of more than five people outside the
auspices of the Church of England.
And what William Penn and William Mead had done was they had preached to a group of ore
than five people on the streets of London; they stood trial at the Old Bailey before a judge and
jury. At the end of the evidence the judge directed the jury to convict, the jury refused to
convict.
The judge was furious, he ordered the jury to convict again and stated that they would not be
dismissed until they did so; the jury again refused to convict. The judge remanded the entire
jury in custody for two days and ordered that they be denied all food and water. As the jurors
were being taken from court to prison, William Penn, it is said, shouted out, ‘You are
Englishmen, mind your privilege, give not away your right’, to which one member of the jury,
Edward Bushell, it is said, replied, ‘Nor shall we ever do’.
When the jury returned to court two days later, having not had any food or water for that period,
the judge again ordered them to convict; the jury continued to refuse and returned a verdict of
not guilty. The judge was determined not to let the matter lie; he fined the jury for contempt of
court and remanded them in custody until the fines were paid. Eight jurors paid their fines, four
jurors refused to pay and one of those jurors was Edward Bushell.
Edward Bushell then petitioned a Higher Court in what is called a writ of [habeas] corpus,](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2qwpeisxhznwdjfylihurdp4/bafkreicpmtyamdq6hftje2v4gs72m7gd3flayg5qw6ny5mbvhx42wc3djm)
![which if issued by the court would result in his immediate release from custody. The Higher
Court issued that writ and Edward Bushell and the three other jurors were released, thereby
establishing the right of a jury to return a verdict without fear of punishment from the trial
judge.
Now, this legal challenge by Edward Bushell has come to be known as Bushell’s Case and is
one of the most celebrated cases in British legal history. There is a marble plaque inside the
Old Bailey in Central London, which reads as follows: ‘Near this site, William Penn and
William Mead were tried in 1670 for preaching to an unlawful assembly in Grace Church
Street. This tablet commemorates the courage and endurance of the jury, Thomas Vere, Edward
Bushell and 10 others, who refused to give a verdict against them, although locked up without
food for two nights and were fined for their final verdict of not guilty. The case of these jury
men was reviewed under a writ of [habeas] corpus and Chief Justice Vaughan delivered the
opinion of the Court, which established the right of juries to give their verdict according to
their convictions’.
So, bringing that all together, members of the jury, you can find Charlotte and her
co-defendants not guilty of criminal damage; it is a perfectly fair and proper verdict for you to
return in this case. Please do not for one second think that you are somehow barred as a matter
of law from doing so, indeed, you should find Charlotte and her co-defendants not guilty of
criminal damage.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2qwpeisxhznwdjfylihurdp4/bafkreif7ka53g2txmtexfy4nf3l425oyukn7knght63isj4hwfydb42pt4)