This was established and demonstarted by a Jury in London in the year 1670, the month of September, a case brought to trial on the first day of that month. That Jury ignored the Judicial direction as what it might find, and was imprisoned overnights without food and water in the Tower of London for so doing. Some were held in the Tower until November.
Still that courageous Jury stood fast to its own judgement. Finally -- after considerable public efforts their verdict stood. Not the verdict for which the Judge asked not the charge the baliff had orignally declared..
The Jury ruled that William Penn was guily only of "Speaking in Public" -- no crime that. They had recast the very charge -- of incitement to riot, and found according to Liberty and Truth.
That trial and ruling by the Jury is part of our common law, as we inherited it.
God bless FReepers that know something and teach it freely to we, the people.