Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the…

Crime is only the retail department of what, in wholesale, we call penal law.

— George Bernard Shaw

Penal law was not created by the common people, nor by the peasantry, nor by the proletariat, but entirely by the bourgeoisie as an…

— Michel Foucault

Prostitution is really the only crime in the penal law where two people are doing a thing mutually agreed upon and yet only one,…

— Kate Millett

It is not only the juror's right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though…

— John Adams

Nullification is the Jeffersonian idea that the states of the American Union must judge the constitutionality of the acts of their agent, the federal…

— Thomas Woods

The States then being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no…

— James Madison

In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves…

— James Madison

Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact (casus non faederis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of…

— Thomas Jefferson

If the question [before justices of the peace] relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which…

— Thomas Jefferson

I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union,…

— Andrew Jackson

Nullification is not a 'defense' recognized by law, but rather a mechanism that permits a jury, as community conscience, to disregard the strict requirements…

— David L. Bazelon

It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and…

— John Adams

Men do not make laws. They do but discover them.

— Calvin Coolidge

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively,…

— Joseph Story

Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction . . . if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction…

— Alexander Hamilton