[6] Suppose these statutes, instead of disfranchising all whose freeholds were of less than the standard value fixed by the statutes, had disfranchised all whose freeholds were of greater value than the same standard would anybody ever have doubted that such legislation was inconsistent with the English constitution; or that it amounted to an entire abolition of the trial by jury? Certainly not. Yet it was as clearly inconsistent with the common law, or the English constitution, to disfranchise those whose freeholds fell below any arbitrary standard fixed by the government, as it would have been to disfranchise all whose freeholds rose above that standard. [7] Lingard says: "These compurgators or jurors * * were sometimes * * drawn by lot." 1 Lingard's History of England, p. 300. [8] Chapter 4, p. 120, note. [9] Editor's Note: (The following was not in Spooner's addition) With the ratification of Article XIX of amendment to the Constitution for the United States, August 20, 1920, women were fully enfranchised with all rights of voting and jury service in all states of the Union. CHAPTER VII. ILLEGAL JUDGES IT is a principle of Magna Carta, and therefore of the trial by jury, (for all parts of Magna Carta must be construed together,) that no judge or other officer appointed by the king, shall preside in jury trials, in criminal cases, or "pleas of the crown." This provision is contained in the great charters of both John and Henry, and is second in importance only to the provision guaranteeing the trial by jury, of which it is really a part. Consequently, without the observance of this prohibition, there can be no genuine or legal that is, common law trial by jury. At the common law, all officers who held jury trials, whether in civil or criminal cases, were chosen by the people. [1] But previous to Magna Carta, the kings had adapted the practice of sending officers of their own appointment, called justices, into the counties, to hold jury trials in some cases; and Magna Carta authorizes this practice to be continued so far as it relates to three kinds of civil actions, to wit: "novel disseisin, mort de ancestor, and darrein presentment;" [2] but specially forbids its being extended to criminal cases, or pleas of the crown. This prohibition is in these words: "Nullus vicecomes, constabularius, coronator, vel alii balivi nostri, teneant placita coronae nostrae." (No sheriff, constable, coroner, or other our bailiffs, shall hold pleas of our crown.) John's Charter, ch. 53, Henry's ditto, ch. 17.