The Jury System as a Leap of Faith (original) (raw)

The American Jury System: A Synthetic Overview

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...

Musings on the Jury System: Reverence and Respect

Brooklyn law review, 2001

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at BrooklynWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Brooklyn Law Review by an authorized editor of BrooklynWorks.

Empirical assessment of the escabinato jury system

Psychology, Crime & Law, 1996

There are two practical applications ofthe jury system: the jury oflay people and the escabinato jury involvingjoint decision making by legal experts and lay people. Research undertaken in this field has been almost exclusively centered on the former. This work consists of an empirical study of the role oflegal suggest that the loss of a jury of peers implies the dominance of the judge's opinion. The causes and consequences of this domination have been assessed.

The Rule of Law and Jury Trials

Stance: an international undergraduate philosophy journal

In The Rule of Law in the Real World, Paul Gowder presents a new account of the rule of law based on three conditions: publicity, regularity, and generality. In this essay, I examine two closely related questions that are prompted by Gowder’s version of the rule of law. First, does the rule of law require citizens to follow the law? Second, what does Gowder’s account mean for jury nullification? I argue that the rule of law does not require citizens to follow the law, but it does prohibit jury nullification. A discussion of some moral implications and objections follow.

d'Aniello (2023) The jury on trial Guilty or not guilty? Investigating jury trial issues through a comparative approach

Routledge, 2023

In response to the democratic principle 'justice by the people and for the people', many jurisdictions worldwide choose to use the jury trial. European juries differ from Anglo-American juries and from one another in several aspects. However, despite the differences, none of the jurisdictions that uses juries seems to have found the 'perfect recipe' for a well-functioning jury system. The occurrence of miscarriages of justice involving incorrect jury verdicts demonstrates that the jury trial as a whole may be failing to respond to those democratic needs that constituted the foundations of its introduction. Nevertheless, the jury system appears to be ineradicably rooted in those jurisdictions that chose to introduce it. Clearly, the current situation calls for reform. This chapter, looking at juries from an international standpoint, proposes a critical comparative analysis of some of the most worrying issues occurring in jury decision-making contexts. As the chapter will show, in the search for solutions, comparisons at the international level can offer fruitful insights on how to promote improvement and reform of the jury trial worldwide.

Trial by Jury or Judge: Transcending Empiricism

1992

Pity the civil jury, seen by some as the sickest organ of a sick system. Yet the jury has always been controversial. One might suppose that, with so much at stake for so long, we would all know a lot about the ways juries differ from judges in their behavior. In fact, we know remarkably little. This Article provides the