Against Timocrates

I am not less than thirty years old. I will give impartial hearing to prosecutor and defendant alike, and I will give my verdict strictly on the charge named in the prosecution. The juror shall swear by Zeus, Poseidon, and Demeter, and shall invoke destruction upon himself and his household if he in any way transgress this oath, and shall pray that his prosperity may depend upon his loyal observance thereof.

The oath, gentlemen of the jury, does not contain the words I will not imprison any Athenian citizen. The courts alone decide every question brought to trial; and they have full authority to pass sentence of imprisonment, or any other sentence they please.

That you are empowered to pass sentence of imprisonment I prove by this argument; and I take it that everybody will agree that to invalidate judicial decisions is monstrous, impious, and subversive of popular government. Our commonwealth, gentlemen of the jury, is administered by laws and by votes of the people; and if once decisions by vote are repealed by a new law, where will be the end of it? Can we justly call this thing a law? Is it not rather the negation of law? Does not such a lawgiver merit our strongest resentment?