“We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and it's efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read”

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

Pt. 2, ch. 20
Atticus Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system — that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.

Context: We have an obligation to one another, responsibilities and trusts. That does not mean we must be pigeons, that we must be exploited. But it does mean that we should look out for one another when and as much as we can; and that we have a personal responsibility for our behavior; and that our behavior has consequences of a very real and profound nature. We are not powerless. We have tremendous potential for good or ill. How we choose to use that power is up to us; but first we must choose to use it. We're told every day, "You can't change the world." But the world is changing every day. Only question is... who's doing it? You or somebody else?

Depa Billipa and Mace Windu, p. 313
Shatterpoint (2004)

Quoted in Fire and Ice: The Art and Thought of Robert Frost (1961) by Lawrence Thompson
1960s

As quoted by Holly Yan et. al. Al-Assad touts plan for resolution, says enemies of Syria 'will go to hell' http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/06/world/meast/syria-civil-war/?hpt=hp_t1, CNN (Jan. 17, 2013)

Reg. v. Gibson (1887), 18 Q. B. D. 537; 16 Cox, C. C. 181.

The Never-Ending Wrong (1977)
Context: The trial of Jesus of Nazareth, the trial and rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, any one of the witchcraft trials in Salem during 1691, the Moscow trials of 1937 during which Stalin destroyed all of the founders of the 1924 Soviet Revolution, the Sacco-Vanzetti trial of 1920 through 1927 — there are many trials such as these in which the victim was already condemned to death before the trial took place, and it took place only to cover up the real meaning: the accused was to be put to death. These are trials in which the judge, the counsel, the jury, and the witnesses are the criminals, not the accused. For any believer in capital punishment, the fear of an honest mistake on the part of all concerned is cited as the main argument against the final terrible decision to carry out the death sentence. There is the frightful possibility in all such trials as these that the judgment has already been pronounced and the trial is just a mask for murder.

Source: The Glass Cage (1966), p. 200