Like the Electoral College, several of the plans made by the Founding Fathers have lost some of their practicality. What worked in the past does not always work in the future, and this is the case for the jury system. The sole reason it was created was to ensure that each citizen was guaranteed a fair trial, which was a main concern due to Britain’s monarchy. In modern times, however, the judicial branch of the United States could easily give every citizen a fair trial with only a judge presiding over the case. It is clear that bench trials are superior to trials by jury because the citizens on juries are unqualified or biased, its benefits do not outweigh its burdens, and its claim to encourage civic duty is false. A jury, by definition, …show more content…
In the aforementioned comic, “Jury,” an unamused man thinks to himself, “A misdemeanor!? They’re wasting my time with a [expletive] misdemeanor!? Next time, I’m demanding a felony!” (Document E, 297). It is true that jury duty is a civic duty, but many citizens appear to share this man’s opinion on it. A majority of citizens see jury duty as some sort of punishment, which is made clear by popular television shows and other forms of media, which greatly diminishes the value of the jury system. In cases where the media plays a major role, such as the Casey Anthony case, jurors can be endangered after a verdict is made (Document D, 295). A woman was told that Anthony was found not guilty, and she said that Anthony would not be accepted back into the community and would have to move away. Jurors of the case who came to the verdict would also be in danger of being ostracized by the community for their unfavorable decision; if these citizens had known about the outcry that would follow the verdict, they most likely wouldn’t have served on the jury at all. A total of 5,082 trials were jury trials in one year, which was a small fraction of all cases tried in the same year (Document A, 289). Since the jury system has been around since the country claimed its independence, and the population has been growing rapidly since then, it would be assumed that a trial involving citizens would become more commonplace. This is not the case, however, so it can be inferred that citizens dislike jury duty so much that it has failed to gain any traction since its inception. Civic duty is now perceived as civic punishment, and it is safe to assume that it is mostly thanks to jury
Jurors should not know anything about a specific case and not follow public affairs and read the news (Doc F). When a person is selected to be part of a jury, they have to say an oath stating that they will not use their emotions to determine the verdict of a trial. If a juror is caught using their emotions, they will be fined for a crime called perjury. Since there are twelve people in a jury, there is a variation of opinions when the jury decides a verdict. But, a judge is more professional and knows how to only use the evidence provided and be less biased.
The fragility of it is that you can be put on a jury full of people who don’t care about your fate, and through unlucky means be accused of something that you didn’t do. People decide your faith, and you can’t expect those on the jury to react in a completely unbiased way. Juror seven likewise, does not care about the fate of the boy, dismissing the case in a blink of an eye, with his only desire was to attend the baseball game. Clearly unfit for jury duty, he was willing to sacrifice the life of a potentially innocent boy. It can’t be known whether a jury will consist of biased or unbiased people, those convicted have no control of such matters.
For example teacher do not have to serve in jury service because there is no specific amount of time that the case will go on for, if the case goes on for 3 months the teachers miss out on 3 months of school therefore effecting the students and their learning. For this reason teacher do not have to attend jury service. This means that there will not be a teachers point of view on the jury system, a teacher could give good points about the
1.0 Introduction Section 80 guarantees the right to trial by jury. The Queensland Jury Act 1995 provides the current legislation which decrees that all trials on indictment must be by jury. In the ninety years since this legislation was passed, an increase of trial complexity has occurred, leaving many jurors with the inability to comprehend the information and evidence procured in a trial. This proceeds to make lay juries ineffective and unreliable. To remedy the situation, specialised juries should be introduced to minimize the amount of incorrect verdicts, misunderstandings in court, jury misconduct, and avoidance of jury duty.
Coincidentally White As Reconstruction drew to a close in early 1877, a national debate about the proper selection of jury pools came to the forefront. Two major Supreme Court cases highlight this debate: Virginia v. Rives and Ex Parte Virginia, both of which stemmed from the killing of Aaron Shelton in Patrick County, Virginia. Following a seemingly unjust verdict given by an all-white jury pool in the murder trial, the defense attorneys petitioned a federal district judge, Alexander Rives. Rives not only took over the case, but also "charged a racially mixed federal grand jury" to "consider whether to indict state judges in the five counties from which the jurors were drawn" (HBS Rec.
Opponents to the high use of this procedure cite the issue that it removes the public and the jury from the justice system, it is based on coercion, and it understates true crime statistics when criminals plead guilty to lesser crimes. Additionally, innocent people may plead guilty from fear they will be convicted by a jury and face a long jail sentence. (Barkan and Bryjack, Page 250-252)
Another reason citizens question juries is that they have bias from personal experience or the media. The defendant and the prosecution criticize the jury system because the actual jurors may not understand the situation from any point of view because they come from different lifestyles (Doc E). The American jury system is not a good idea anymore because juries are not experts in law, they have bias, and are not “a jury of peers”. Because jurors are not experts in law, they are subject to be
Our jury system stretches all the way back in England hundreds of years ago. Whenever a crime was committed in a community, a judge and his or her jury would come together to put the accused on trial. The judge served more as the legal expert over the trial. However, the jury was made up of twelve men who lived in the area that the crime was committed. These ordinary citizens were the ones that decided the verdict of the case.
Jury service in adversarial court systems is an important civic duty and responsibility. Jurors have to understand and weigh up evidence presented, assess the credibility of witnesses and decide on the likelihood of certain events having occurred in the light of their own personal experiences. There has been increasing interest in whether deaf sign language users should be permitted to serve as jurors. In the USA deaf people have been serving as jurors in criminal trials since 1979. Legal challenges in the UK and Ireland have established that deaf people have the capacity to make decisions as jurors, and can sufficiently comprehend courtroom discourse and jury deliberations through a sign language interpreter (Heffernan, 2010).
The jury system continued to evolve over a period of time and eventually the United States Constitution was written to govern the jury system. The Sixth and Seventh Amendments stated that we should have 12 members and the cases were to be resolved upon a unanimous verdict (Landsman & Holderman2010). In the 1970’s the court approved juries of 12 or fewer and a non-unanimous verdict in civil cases in federal court cases. Since the evolution of the judicial system it has become easier to get jurors to come to court to do their civil duty. A list is compiled of selected jurors from voter registration and driver’s license information from the state (United States Courts, n.d.).
Citizen Required To Serve? Jury a group of citizens sworn to give a verdict in a legal case on the basis of evidence submitted to them in court. Being able to serve on a jury is an absolute privilege to do for some and one thing that makes this country very different and unique from others. Serving on a jury should not be required for citizens. Some people believe serving on a jury should be a requirement for every citizen.
The American jury system has been around for centuries but all of a sudden, people are trying to change it. Hundreds of years ago in England, the first of the jury systems were adopted. When there was a crime, the accused was brought before a judge and jury (B.E.). The jury, a group of twelve white men, from the area the crime was committed, heard the case and all of the evidence (B.E.). Those 12 men, decided whether or not the person being accused was guilty or not.
On July 14th 2015 I sat on a jury in a criminal case for State of Florida v John Doe (I do not remember defendants name). John Doe was charged with assault with a deadly weapon for pulling a knife on a man and cutting him twice with the blade. To begin with, I showed up at 8AM to the courthouse hoping that I would not be selected to be on a jury. The first set of jurors was selected and low and behold
Ancient Athenian trials were heard by a randomly selected jury of between 200 and 6,000 citizens. While US courts have much smaller number of jurors and much more powerful judges the basic idea of a fair trial by jury is the
This essay will briefly discuss the role of the jury and how it works, from the principle behind it, to the method with which members are selected, and to the powers available to jurors. Moreover, it will outline advantages and disadvantages of trial by jury, and it will point out a couple of ways which could ameliorate this type of trial. Trial by jury has been a part of the criminal justice system since the 12th century (Davies, 2015), it is considered an ancient right and a symbol of liberty (Hostettler, 2004). It creates no precedent and it can decide challenging cases equitably without making bad law, it also brings members of the public into the administration of justice and into an understanding of legal and human rights (Hostettler,