LXV. For treason, murder, and all other offences punishable with death, there shall be a commission, twice a year at least, granted onto one or more members of the grand council or colleges, who shall come as itinerant judges to the several counties, and with the sheriff and four justices shall hold assizes to judge all such causes; but, upon paying of fifty pounds sterling to the Lords Proprietors use, there shall be liberty of appeal to the respective proprietor's court.
LXVI. The grand jury at the several assizes, shall, upon their oaths, and under their hands and seals, deliver in to the itinerant judges a presentment of such grievances, misdemeanors, exigences, or defects, which they think necessary for the public good of the county; which presentments shall, by the itinerant judges, at the end of their circuit, be delivered in to the grand council at their next sitting. And whatsoever therein concerns the execution of laws already made; the several proprietors courts, in the matters belonging to each of them respectively, shall take cognizance of it and give such order about it, as shall be effectual for the due execution of the laws. But whatever concerns the making of any new law, shall be referred to the several respective courts to which that matter belongs, and be by them prepared and brought to the grand council.
LXVII. For terms, there shall be quarterly such a certain number of days, not exceeding one and twenty at any one time, as the several respective courts shall appoint. The time for the beginning of the term, in the precinct-court, shall be the first Monday in January, April, July, and October; in the county-court, the first Monday in February, May, August, and November, and in the proprietors courts, the first Monday in March, June, September, and December.
LXVIII. In the precinct-court no man shall be a jury-man under fifty acres of freehold. In the county-court, or at the assizes, no man shall be a grand jury-man under three hundred acres of freehold; and no man shall be a petty jury-man under two hundred acres of freehold. In the proprietors courts no man shall be a jury-man under five hundred acres of freehold.
LXIX. Every jury shall consist of twelve men; and it shall not be necessary they should all agree, but the verdict shall be according to the consent of the majority.
LXX. It shall be a base and vile thing to plead for money or reward; nor shall any one (except he be a near kinsman, not farther off than cousin-german to the party concerned) be permitted to plead another man's cause, till, before the judge in open court, he hath taken an oath, that he doth not plead for money or reward, nor hath nor will receive, nor directly nor indirectly bargained with the party, whose cause he is going to plead; for money or any other reward for pleading his cause.
LXXI. There shall be a parliament, consisting of the proprietors or their deputies, the landgraves and cassiques, and one freeholder out of every precinct, to be chosen by the freeholders of the said precinct respectively. They shall sit all together in one room, and have every member one vote.
LXXII. No man shall be chosen a member of parliament, who hath less than five hundred acres of freehold within the precinct for which he is chosen; nor shall any have a vote in chusing the said member that hath less than fifty acres of free-hold within the said precinct.
LXXIII. A new parliament shall be assembled the first Monday of the month of November every second year, and shall meet and sit in the town they last sat in, without any summons, unless by the Palatine's court they be summoned to meet at any other place. And if there shall be any occasion of a parliament in these intervals, it shall be in the power of the Palatine's court to assemble them in forty days notice, and at such time and place as the said court shall think fit; and the Palatine's court shall have power to dissolve the said parliament when they shall think fit.
LXXIV. At the opening of every parliament, the first thing that shall be done, shall be the reading of these FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONS, which the Palatine and proprietors, and the rest of the members then present shall subscribe. Nor shall any person whatsoever sit or vote in the parliament, till he hath that session subscribed these FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONS, in a book kept for that purpose by the clerk of the parliament.