Existing comment:
Case of William Penn and William Mead
On trial in 1667 for preaching his Quaker faith in public, William Penn convinced the jury that as Englishmen, they could refuse to convict. When the jury declined to find Penn and fellow Quaker William Mead guilty in spite of conclusive evidence for a conviction, Lord Chief Justice John Kelynge (1607–1671) imprisoned and denied members of the jury daily necessities until they rendered a guilty verdict. In response to a petition for a writ of habeas corpus by Edward Bushel, one of the jurors, Lord Chief Justice Vaughan (1603–1674) of the Court of Common Pleas held that a judge may not imprison a jury for refusing to deliver the desired verdict. |