onciled with the fundamental
principles of criminal law, nor with the most ordinary rules of justice.
Such a ruling cannot but shock the moral sense of all right-minded,
unprejudiced men.

No doubt the assumption by the defendant of a belief of her right to
vote might be made use of by her as a mere cover to secure the privilege
of giving a known illegal vote, and of course that false assumption
would constitute no defence to the charge of illegal voting. If the
defendant had dressed herself in male attire, and had voted as John
Anthony, instead of Susan, she would not be able to protect herself
against a charge of voting with a knowledge that she had no right to
vote, by asserting her belief that she had a right to vote as a woman.
The artifice would no doubt effectually overthrow the assertion of good
faith. No such question, however, is made here. The decision of which I
complain concedes that the defendant voted in good faith, in the most
implicit belief that she had a right to vote, and condemns her on the
strength of the legal fiction, conceded to be in fact a mere fiction,
that she knew the contrary.

But if the facts admitted of a doubt of the defendant's good faith, that
was a question for the jury, and it was clear error for the court to
assume the decision of it.

Again. The denial of the right to poll the jury was most clearly an
error. Under the provisions of the constitution which have been cited,
the defendant could only be convicted on the verdict of a jury. The case
of Cancemi shows that such jury must consist of twelve men; and it will
not be claimed that anything less than the unanimous voice of the jury
can be received as their verdict. How then could the defendant be
lawfully deprived of the right to ask every juror if the verdict had his
assent? I believe this is a right which was never before denied to a
party against whom a verdict was rendered in any case, either civil or
criminal. The following cases show, and many others might be cited to
the same effect, that the right to poll the jury is an absolute right in
all cases, civil and criminal. (The People vs. Perkins, 1 Wend. 91.
Jackson vs. Hawks, 2 Wend. 619. Fox vs. Smith. 3 Cowen, 23.)

The ground on which the right of the defendant to vote has been denied,
is, as I understand the decision of the court, "that the rights of the
citizens of the state as such were not under consideration in the
fourteenth amendment; that they stand as they d