a judge of the Supreme Court. It is for them to say
whether the right of trial by jury shall exist only in form, or be
perpetuated according to the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

The New York Sun scored the judge as follows:

Judge Hunt allowed the jury to be impanelled and sworn, and to hear
the evidence; but when the case had reached the point of the
rendering of the verdict, he directed a verdict of guilty. He thus
denied a trial by jury to an accused party in his court; and either
through malice, which we do not believe, or through ignorance,
which in such a flagrant degree is equally culpable in a judge, he
violated one of the most important provisions of the Constitution
of the United States. It is hardly worth while to argue that the
right of trial by jury includes the right to a verdict by the jury,
and to a free and impartial verdict, not one ordered, compelled and
forced from them by an adverse and predetermined court. The
language of the Constitution of the United States is that "in all
criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy
and public trial by an impartial jury." Do the words an "impartial
jury" mean a jury directed and controlled by the court, and who
might just as well, for all practical purposes, be twelve wooden
automatons, moved by a string pulled by the hand of the judge?

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle commented:

In the action of Judge Hunt there was a grand, over-reaching
assumption of authority, unsupported by any point in the case
itself, but adopted as an established legal principle. If there is
such a principle, Judge Hunt did his duty beyond question, and he
is scarcely lower than the angels so far as personal power goes.
The New York Sun assumes that there is no such principle; that if
there were, "Judge Hunt might on his own _ipsedixit_, and without
the intervention of a jury, fine, imprison or hang any man, woman
or child in the United States." And the Sun proceeds to say that
Judge Hunt "must be impeached and removed. Such punishment for the
commission of a crime like his against civil liberty is a
necessity. The American people will not tolerate a judge like this
on the bench of their highest court. To do it would be to submit
their necks to as detestable a tyranny as ever existed on the face.
of the earth. Th