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Why are common people selected to be the jury in the USA? Shouldn't people that know the law to decide criminal's fate? Why pick just some twelve random people to be the jury and decide the outcome of a trial instead of people who have extensive knowledge of the law?

Lightsout
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    We don't have royalty. Everyone is a commoner. :-) – Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні Jun 01 '22 at 16:24
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    @BobJarvis-СлаваУкраїні - I live in the UK. We do have royalty and we still pick jurors who are randomers – Richard Jun 01 '22 at 17:24
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    @Richard if a member of the royal family was charged with a crime in the UK, would the jury consist of other royalty? (The defendant's peers?) – Someone Jun 01 '22 at 18:42
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    @Someone - Nope. – Richard Jun 01 '22 at 18:50
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    Another "check and balance". Hypothetically, a law could be made that no jury would convict, until such time as a new legislature was elected to repeal the law. –  Jun 01 '22 at 21:36
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    The House of Lords used to conduct trials of British peers until 1935. – Simon Crase Jun 01 '22 at 22:57
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    England & Wales: Note the jury does not decide the law; the judge does that. The jury decide whether the facts as presented make out the crime. Therefore the jury should not need to be legal experts. – abligh Jun 02 '22 at 01:02
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    @abligh the same is true in the US. – phoog Jun 02 '22 at 09:00
  • I guess you would need the common people to rule on common law. – Neil Meyer Jun 02 '22 at 17:26
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    @SimonCrase: The last such trial did happen in 1935, but the peers had this right in principle until 1948. It just appears that no peer actually exercised that right during those 13 years. – Michael Seifert Jun 02 '22 at 17:36
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    Trial of an English noble by his peers in the House of Lords was notably memorialized/fictionalized in the classic novel "Clouds Of Witness" (Sayers, 1926) featuring the elegant Balliol man and amateur detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. (The supercilious defendant was his brother, Gerald, Duke of Denver.) Much 1920s British class structure is on display in this story, eh, what? – davidbak Jun 02 '22 at 23:43
  • Cue the Pulp song from the 80s – Neil Meyer Jun 03 '22 at 20:26
  • I think there are cases where the jury does need to know the law. I knew someone who was on a jury for a murder trial, and she asked me "what's the difference between murder and manslaughter". I refused to answer - I said "you'll have to ask the judge or one of the lawyers". But basically, the jury all agreed that the defendant had killed the victim, and the question of whether to find him guilty of murder or of manslaughter was one of legal definitions, not a question of the facts of the case. – Dawood ibn Kareem Jun 04 '22 at 04:55
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    @davidbak Also in the excellent Ealing Studios film "Kind Hearts and Coronets". (Adapted from the novel "Israel Rank", but I don't recall whether that plot element was also in the book.) – GB supports the mod strike Jun 04 '22 at 06:55
  • @DawoodibnKareem In that case, the judge should be explaining what facts would constitute murder vs. manslaughter (e.g. "if he went there with the intention to kill, it's murder"), and the jury should be deciding which facts they believe to be true (did he go there with the intention to kill?) – GB supports the mod strike Jun 04 '22 at 06:59
  • Sure. My understanding (from reading the newspapers, not from conversing with the juror) is that the judge later did exactly that. – Dawood ibn Kareem Jun 04 '22 at 07:23

6 Answers6

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Because it's explicitly a jury of your peers

That is, every person is entitled to have their guilt or innocence decided by people "like them" - not kings, lords or, heaven forbid, lawyers. In fact, if you were a peer (a Member of the House of Lords), you had the right until well into the 20th century to be literally tried by your peers - that is, by the House of Lords itself; however, this was more of a burden than a privilege as such a trial had fewer protections for the accused.

The jury doesn't need to know the law and indeed, in many jurisdictions, lawyers are explicitly disqualified from jury service (hint: if you want to avoid jury service, get a law degree). The role of the jury is to decide the facts - what happened and whether that meets the prosecution's burden of proof.

The jury is told what the law is by the judge - that's their job. Most law shows on TV skip over the very important role of the judge's instructions to the jury. These usually go along the lines of (greatly abridged and paraphrased) "If you decide that X, Y & Z are true then you must return a guilty verdict but if any of them are not true you must return not guilty."

A very brief potted history of the jury system is contained in this answer: Why 12 Jurors, why not 11, 10, 9, 1?

Now, this is, according to those from common law traditions, the great truth and beauty of the jury system. To those from civil, sharia and other legal traditions: it's just stupid.

Dale M
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Because that is the goal in common law!

The US jury system is based on picking a group of "randoms" from the street that form a jury of their peers of the accused - That is what the US constitution demands after all in the 6th Amendment. Do note that a jury of peers is not a jury of people that share your characteristics (only one gender of the accused's background) but to be a cross-section of the population around.

This has been interpreted by courts to mean that the available jurors include a broad spectrum of the population, particularly of race, national origin, and gender.

They don't need to know the law, that's what the judge is for. They need to listen to the witnesses and see the evidence and then decide, based on a couple of instructions (which are pretty much checklists to go through) that then result in "This is X".

Juries are nonexistent in many civil law systems

In juries are absent. The judge is also leading the examination (as in, asking questions). Then they analyze the facts and come to a verdict themselves. However, at least in Germany, there are "Schöffen", which are best described as laymen judges. These are not just random people though, they get a (short) legal training (in some cases, just a leaflet) because they are acting as (assistant) judges to the law degree judges.

phoog
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Trish
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When the jury first began to be used in trials of criminals in England, back in the late 1100s, jury members were people from their local area who were supposed to know, either personally or by "common repute" (aka "what everyone knows") what the facts of the matter were. In effect they were a group of witnesses, there to say what the facts were (because they knew), after which the judge would say what the law indicated should be done based on those facts. In this role, a jury replaced a trial by ordeal or a trial by combat.

Later, as districts grew more heavily populated, and tolerance for "what everyone knows" declined, the role of the jury gradually changed. Eventually, the modern jury, whose members are supposed to know nothing about the facts until they hear the evidence in court, emerged.

But the modern jury is still supposed to determine what the facts of a case are, letting the judge decide what law applies to those facts.

So why was the jury not done away with when it no longer brought local information into court? In large part, because of the huge judicial and social inertial. Such changes were then slow and often resisted. (Trial by Combat was not formally abolished until 1819, following the case of Ashford v Thornton although the last clearly recorded trial by combat was over 200 years before that.)

Beyond that, trial by jury came to be seen as a strong protection of an accused against unjust or tyrannical charges. It has thus remained an important part of US law, although it is now far less common in the law of England and Wales, where it arose.

For more details on this, I recommend the chapter "Grand and Petty" from The Law of the Land by Charles Rembar (available as an eBook).

Trial by Jury was never designed to have its present effect, and originally it was an instrument of Royal Justice, intended to more effectively convict those the authorities thought dangerous. It has changed drastically in purpose and effect over some 800 years, while keeping its form relatively stable. In short, the modern jury trial is a historical accident.

Rick Smith
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David Siegel
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  • I think you could view most things as "historical accidents". Nothing comes from a vacuum. But when founding documents codify it, there's probably something more there than historical momentum. –  Jun 01 '22 at 21:49
  • @608 True, but some things are more or less designed for current utility, others have developed over a long period. The kind of question asked here more or less implies design. – David Siegel Jun 01 '22 at 21:58
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    You have an excellent good explaining the why of the juries. The Medieval man lived their life in the open view of their townsfolk. Ans now, 900+ years since... why, it works, don't fix it. :) That's one of the main tenets of the Common law. – kkm -still wary of SE promises Jun 01 '22 at 23:57
  • @608, There is a huge difference between Common law and Statutory law. Both systems have quite a history, but neither is clearly superior, for the other would be abandoned by reasonable ppl. In Common law, “when founding documents codify it,” a judge may strike it down on the grounds that it goes against the grain of the established precedent, the vast body of the accumulated legal practice. In the US, the judicial decision can only be overcome by the both Houses supermajority vote. Never happened since the sixties, IIRC. – kkm -still wary of SE promises Jun 02 '22 at 00:08
  • @kkm There are several confusions and misstatements in your latest comment. The two systems are common law (originally derived from England) and civil law (largely in Europe and areas with law derived from Europe, looking back in part to Rome) Both systems use statutory law, that is law passed by a legislature. The English-derived system also uses judge-made law, confusingly also called "common law". In the UK, a judge may not strike down and Act of Parliament; In the US, this may be done on constitutional grounds only, and such a ruling may not be overturned by Congress [...] – David Siegel Jun 03 '22 at 15:41
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    @kkm However in both the UK and US judges do interpret the law, which may amount to setting how it is to be applied, and may in some cases create new law to fill gaps in what the legislature has done. In civil law systems judges may not create new law, and have a narrower range of interpretation available. There are several questions worth of discussion here, indeed several books worth. (To further confuse matters the term "civil law" is also used to mean "non-criminal law") – David Siegel Jun 03 '22 at 15:45
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    @kkm Replacing a legal system would be an immense undertaking for any modern state. Even if it was generally agreed that French law, say, was fundamentally better than UK law; the costs of switching would still make it impossible to do so in practical terms. – Jack Aidley Jun 03 '22 at 19:36
  • David, thanks for the clarification, gladly admit my errors! Yes, terminology is confusing, too. “In the US, [the striking down of an Act of Congress] may be done on constitutional grounds only, and such a ruling may not be overturned by Congress”(emph. mine)—I may have a mess in my head, but I though about statutory rulings, which I believed could be overruled by Congress? Or only worked around by changing the language of the Act in question? – kkm -still wary of SE promises Jun 04 '22 at 03:14
  • @608 My comment was misleading; please read Davids corrections. – kkm -still wary of SE promises Jun 04 '22 at 03:16
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    @JackAidley, There was probably a misunderstanding. I meant that one system would replace another on a historic scale and by gradual evolution, if it were clearly superior, not that it could realistically happen in a modern democratic state via a directed conscious effort (although that's possible in theory). Another case that could change a legal system overnight is a revolution, of course, but that strays away from my point too far already. – kkm -still wary of SE promises Jun 04 '22 at 03:28
  • @kkm US courts can strike down a law only by holding it unconstitutional. However, they may interpret a law so as to change its practical effect. Congress or a state legislature can often overcome an interpretation they do not like by amending the law in question, using the same procedures as for passing any law. This happens all the time, and did not stop in the 1960s. A legislature can also confirm, modify, or abolish judge-made law by passing a law. Example: "Fair use" was originally judge-made, but was included in the Copyright Act of 1976. – David Siegel Jun 04 '22 at 22:10
  • @DavidSiegel, thank you! Is that the difference between "statutory" and "constitutional" rulings? Or these are different terns (if they are terms at all?) – kkm -still wary of SE promises Jun 05 '22 at 09:10
  • Wow, David, I glanced at your profile. My good friend had been an APL developer and AI scholar for most of his career, retired just before the pandemic. And I am a physicist by ed., AI researcher by trade, autodidact linguist (really grad-level, need for my work, and audivi 1yr grad neurophysiology, narrow, speech/vision processing, also needed it); and study the Greco-Roman world as a passionate hobby—history, society, religion, mythology, art, psychology, sociology in gen., naturally incl. legal, but missed the judicial system at all. I'm so grateful you helped me discover this blind spot! – kkm -still wary of SE promises Jun 05 '22 at 09:43
  • @kkn "statutory" simply means deriving from a statute, that is, a written law. US court rulings that strike down a law as unconstitutional are in a sense also statutory, as they must usually interpret the law before deciding if it is unconstitutional or not. In the US system one does not often speak of "statutory rulings" because almost all rulings are statutory in one way or another, so it isn't a useful category. – David Siegel Jun 05 '22 at 10:28
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Many laws refer to the concept of a "reasonable" person. For example, someone is negligent if they do something a reasonable person would not have done, or fail to do something a reasonable person would have done, and if damages occurred which a reasonable person would have perceived as a foreseeable consequence of the action or inaction.

It would be impractical for a legislature to try to anticipate and all possible reasonable and unreasonable actions and write laws that would classify every action as reasonable or unreasonable. Further, judgments of reasonable and unreasonable are apt to be somewhat subjective. On the other hand, if twelve random members of the public agree that an action is reasonable, that's a pretty good sign that it is, and if twelve random members of the public agree that an action is unreasonable, that's a pretty good sign that it isn't. If the jury can'tr reach a consensus, that's a pretty good sign that whoever would bear the burden of proof hasn't met it.

A related issue is that while there are many cases in which an otherwise-illegal act may be excusable, it's not possible for legislatures to anticipate all situations where they should be. If twelve random members of the public would all agree that enforcing a statute against a defendant in a particular case would yield a patently unjust result, they would have a right and duty not to do so. This duty should not be taken lightly, and many prosecutors and judges would prefer that jurors not know about it at all, but if e.g. twelve random members of the public would regard a certain fine as excessive, that fine is excessive and the jury would have the right and duty to prevent it from being illegitimately imposed.

supercat
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  • Furthermore, while common people might have a strong opinion of a trial, that prejudicial issue can be handled before beginning the trial proper - but by making the jury members a randomized selection, it makes the potential for jury tampering harder ; since you'd only be able to tamper with them once the trial has officially begun, and most of that would have to be in court in front of a judge. – Alexander The 1st Jun 01 '22 at 21:58
  • “It would be impractical for a legislature to try to anticipate and all possible reasonable and unreasonable actions” – ah, how rrong you are. Just leaf with to uz, if you will hold my bier real qwik... – leftaroundabout Jun 03 '22 at 14:14
  • @AlexanderThe1st: How to sensibly handle potential prejudice can be a tricky issue. If most people in community X would view some action as reasonable, but most people in community Y would view it as unreasonable, someone who is harmed by such action in community X should have a harder time recovering than they would in community Y, but that shouldn't give community X carte blanche to endanger or infringe the rights of visitors no matter how "reasonable" the community might view such infringements as being. – supercat Jun 03 '22 at 16:03
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The Jury is the last defense against bad laws – like those that violate the Constitution – so juries can acquit if they feel the defendant has been unjustly accused even if the statute is a law but that law violates the individual's natural rights. Being a jury of the defendant's peers means that they are more likely to be objective in such a decision. Being a legal expert should not be a prerequisite because a legal expert may love a bad law and may convict without judging the law itself through a constitutional lens.

George Somaru
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I have had the same question myself, because to me it makes no logical sense to have a group of 12 folks decide matters of law when the judge is most obviously the expert. After researching this, I discovered the concept of Jury Nullification. To me, this makes trial by jury make sense.

As I understand it, a jury has the ability (and the right via the 6th Amendment) to decide not only the facts of the case, but also whether the law was applied justly, and whether or not the law itself is just. Because let's be honest, not all laws were or are just. This is our society's last safety check to make sure people are not unjustly convicted due to unjust laws or their misapplication. I think the Wikipedia article does a good job of explaining it.

Heddy
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Michael Becker
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