Juries ARE part of the system

Your relative who would excuse himself from the jury to avoid a conflict with their conscience is, first of all, making a decision to go against their conscience. In such a case, not making the decision is the same as making a decision against one's conscience.

However, more than this, they are also failing to meet their obligations as a citizen and they are refusing to uphold the higher law - both human and (if they are a believer) divine. Please inform your relative that to avoid such a trial would be negligence on their part.

The whole point of a jury trial in the United States is that it acts as a balance against the abuses of power that are likely to occur in all the various departments of government, whether federal, state, or local. The founders understood that, as John Adams noted, men do not become angels when they are voted into office. They understood that the natural progression of a government is for it to become more and more tyrannical as those who are entrusted with power gradually attempt to keep more and more of that power for themselves. The jury is the last in their series of checks and balances: the whole point of having TWELVE people on the jury is to make sure that any criminal law makes such good sense that not even one out of twelve people would object to it.

That is a very high hurdle, and it should be. This is the way in which we prevent tyranny and secure the rights of the people, which is, after all, the avowed purpose of government in the United States.

However, I should also note that this feature is not merely an American thing. The requirement of a trial by jury is also a feature of English law, and it has the same origins: to prevent tyrannical actions by the king and others in the government. As such, it is noteworthy that the precedents that establish the sanctity of the juror's right to be unmolested by the courts regardless of their vote is actually an English precedent.

Having read a bit of history from around the world, it is also noteworthy that in no time and place have citizens upheld the idea that whatever the king does is okay because he was placed there by God. In fact, the Bible itself is not so clear on the subject as many Christians believe. We should bear in mind that the King James translation was authorized by a KING, and the translators took pains to translate portions which referred to the authority of kings to maximize that authority - that is, this translation gives the impression that the king has more authority than he actually does. However, the model that the king is all powerful and his eldest son will take his place is NOT the historical norm, even in Europe. In fact, this concept is an aberration. In most times and places the king's power was constrained by the laws of that nation, and most kings have been elected from a small set of qualified applicants, though usually by a small set of electors (frequently less than a dozen).

So, when kings have asserted that they have unlimited powers, and when congressmen or senators or presidents or judges claim powers beyond those given them, the average citizen is perfectly within their rights to resist. In fact, it is not merely the right but the duty of every citizen to resist such power grabs whenever they can, because every time a public servant usurps such power they are taking it away from the ordinary people where the power of government really resides.

If a person cannot take even the small and (for now) safe step of voting their conscience as a juror, then it is only a matter of time before we are all the slaves of the political class. To refuse one's duty as a juror and to bow out of a trial because the law is unconscionable is an abdication of one's duties and a betrayal of one's country.

I know that the courts will disagree, and the judges have been instructing jurors for a long time that the job of the juror is only to determine the facts of the case, not questions of law - however, history says otherwise.

We need to keep in mind that judges are not above usurping power themselves. In fact, they have been doing that for a long, long time. Every time they issue those false instructions to juries, for example.