Paul zenger trial

Carl Frank Bradley as Bradley. John W. Austin James Alexander as James Alexander. Ian Martin Symes as Symes. Barry Ross Samuel as Samuel. Frank H. Wilson Noah as Noah as Frank Wilson. Henry Barnard Chambers as Chambers. Emory Richardson Peter as Peter. Dennis Cross Guard as Guard. Paul Branson Announcer as Announcer voice.

Paul Nickell. Storyline Edit. This case is important to American historians and champions of the First Amendment because it represented a strong repudiation of British libel law and also marked an important fissure in the relationship between the American colonies and the mother country. After attorneys James Alexander and William Smith, who were also Popular Party members, had attempted to represent John Peter Zenger at his trial, the Court decided to disbar both of them.

The court did this because it was known that no attorney in the Province of New York would be as bold in the defense of John Peter Zenger as Alexander and Smith. A man named John Chambers was then assigned as a counsel for Zenger and entered a plea of not guilty. Chambers was a young man with little law experience in law. He was also complementary of Governor William Cosby's administration. Alexander and Smith searched for the most experienced trial attorney in the colonies and selected a man by the name Andrew Hamilton.

A resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was no relation to Alexander Hamilton and was born in Scotland in The question before the Court and you, Gentlemen of the jury, is not of small or private concern. It is not the cause of one poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now trying. It may in its consequence affect every free man that lives under a British government on the main of America.

It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty. Immediately, Chief Justice De Lancey instructed the jury that they, the jurors, should decide only the question of whether Zenger had published the issues of the New-York Weekly Journal.

Cheers rang out in the crowded courtroom. John Peter Zenger was released from prison the day after the trial. He returned to his printing business and published an account of his trial. It is important to note that the Zenger case did not establish legal precedent in seditious libel or freedom of the press. Rather, it influenced how people thought about these subjects and led, many decades later, to the protections embodied in the Unites States Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Sedition Act of The Zenger case demonstrated the growing independence of the professional Bar and reinforced the role of the jury as a curb on executive power.

Paul Finkelman. Belknap ed.