d'Aniello (2023) The jury on trial Guilty or not guilty? Investigating jury trial issues through a comparative approach (original) (raw)
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Systems of jury trials exist around the world and represent a characteristic of, primarily, Anglo-Saxon legal system. On the first place, the author emphasizes that in the world there exists two basic forms of citizen participation in trial. Nowadays, we have a clear jury system, where citizens make a special trial chamber, which determines the facts and resolves all issues on trials, and on the basis of fact answer the question whether the defendant is guilty or not. On the other hand, there is a mixed jury system, where citizens and judges have a single trial chamber, and where they have equal rights in the fact-finding and in the imposition of criminal sanctions. In the UK and Commonwealth countries, this type of trial has a long history. Nevertheless, in recent years, it experienced a renaissance over the world and has been established in those countries that never had the jury system, or they had it in some stage of their development. In this paper, the author deals with jury trials in some European countries, especially in Spain and Russia, and explains their legal solutions, which strengthen the security of the citizens in the legal system and rule of the law.
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Drawing on a second survey of lay adjudication in Europe conducted by the authors in 2011-2012, this article points to a general decline across Europe in the use of the 'traditional' jury and a trend towards diminishing its capacity to deliver independent decisions. Two examples from Eastern and Western Europe are used to illustrate this trend: a case study of the Russian jury shows how a lack of respect within the legal culture of professionals for lay adjudication has reduced the jury in Russia to a mere 'decorative' institution and an analysis of the ECtHR's jurisprudence shows how the Court's concern to avoid arbitrary decision making has been encouraging Western European states to introduce greater accountability measures, which threaten the jury's independence. The article ends on a more optimistic note by arguing that greater accountability measures need not detract from the jury' s traditional role in promoting lay and political participation in the administration of justice.
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Chicago-Kent} Law Review, 2015
This essay, originally written for a Swiss volume, and revised with added material for publication in the Chicago Kent Law Review, is intended to provide in brief compass a review of much that is known about the American jury system, including the jury's historical origins, its political role, controversies over its role and structure, its performance, both absolutely and in comparison to judges and mixed tribunals, and proposals for improving the jury system. The essay is informed throughout by 50 years of research on the jury system, beginning with the 1965 publication of Kalven and Zeisel's seminal book, The American Jury. The political importance of the jury is seen to lie more in the jury's status as a one shot decision maker largely independent of trial court bureaucracies than in its ability to nullify the law. Despite flaws in the jury process and room for improvement, the message that emerges from the literature is that juries take their job seriously and for th...
The United States jury system is unique in the world in the frequency of its use and its symbolic significance as a democratic institution. As Neil Vidmar writes, the American jury “remains a strong and vibrant institution even as it suffers criticism and calls for reform.” If the jury is “the lamp that shows that freedom lives,” it is ironic that so little is known about what impact the jury system as a democratic institution has on the citizenry who serve as jurors. Improving our understanding of the jury’s impact is vital, as many nations may choose to adopt or reject the jury based partly on beliefs about how jury service shapes the civic beliefs and actions of citizen-jurors. In particular, legal scholars Kent Anderson and Mark Nolan point out that the proponents of Japan’s new “quasi-jury” system marshaled two arguments in favor of greater public participation in the Japanese legal system — better and equitable legal outcomes and “the belief that it promotes a more democratic society.” Do juries, in fact, have such impacts? One theoretical justification for believing juries can help to sustain democracy comes from the work of small-group-communication scholar Ernest Bormann. His Symbolic Convergence Theory has helped to demonstrate that repeated, salient cultural practices can establish habitual ways of communicating in groups. As Bormann explains, successions of otherwise unremarkable public and educational group meetings, along with instruction about effective group behavior, over the course of decades gradually built the “public-discussion model” that emerged in the United States in the 20th century (and persists to this day). For nearly a century, that cultural model has shaped how people talk and think about group problem solving in the U.S. In a similar way, the cultural-institutional legacy of jury service may be public confidence in jury deliberation itself, as well as in the judges who oversee the process. Thus, we theorize that jury service promotes public support for the larger legal process in which citizens participate as jurors. If true, this finding would have tremendous significance for other nations — including Japan, Taiwan, and Mexico — that are considering implementing the all-citizen jury system, because the reforms they implement could be expected to bolster public faith and confidence in the legal system itself.
Jury trial and public trust in the judiciary: evidence from cross-countries comparison
Asia Pacific Law Review , 2020
The jury is an institution that has evoked praise and criticism throughout its history. Recently, it has also triggered debate in many countries as they reform their judicial processes. Gathering data on 111 countries from various sources to analyse the jury as part of the judicial system, we find that public trust in the judiciary is higher in countries with jury trials than in countries without them. Countries that conduct jury trials also tend to have stronger judicial constraints on other sources of governmental power and better-performing criminal adjudication systems. These analyses reveal correlation rather than causation, but they are helpful for challenging conventional wisdom and for better understanding the function of the jury system. The seemingly paradoxical patterns that are identified — namely, that the jury, designed to constrain the judiciary, ends up correlated with stronger judicial power, and that laypeople, supposedly less proficient than professionals in deciding cases, are in fact positively associated with judicial performance — suggest an internal connection between the jury as a judicial body and as a political institution.
Let the Layman Lie: The Case for the Abolition of Jury Trials in Scotland
Aberdeen Student Law Review, 2022
The use of juries in criminal trials in Scotland is deeply ingrained in the public consciousness. This article will discuss the efficacy of their use with particular reference to the substantial issues surrounding jurors' competence, prejudice, and media-imparted bias when serving in criminal cases. It will go on to address potential reforms to the jury system that may alleviate some of these issues. A comparison will be drawn with South Africa, where the use of juries has been eliminated altogether. The article will conclude with the recommendation that, on the basis that the Scottish jury system is beyond repair, the interests of justice would be best served by the abolition of the jury in Scottish criminal trials.