JURY
In trials, a group of people who are selected and
sworn to inquire into matters of fact and to reach a
verdict on the basis of the evidence presented to them.
In U.S. law, decisions in many civil and crim-
inal trials are made by a jury. Considerable power
is vested in this traditional body of ordinary men
and women, who are charged with deciding mat-
ters of fact and delivering a verdict of guilt or
innocence based on the evidence in a case.
Derived from its historical counterpart in English
COMMON LAW, trial by jury has had a central role
in U.S. courtrooms since the colonial era, and it is
firmly established as a basic guarantee in the U.S.
Constitution. Modern juries are the result of a
long series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that
have interpreted this constitutional liberty and, in
significant ways, extended it.
History
The historical roots of the jury date to the
eighth century A.D. Long before becoming an
impartial body, during the reign of Charle-
magne, juries interrogated prisoners. In the
twelfth century, the Normans brought the jury
to England, where its accusatory function
remained: Citizens acting as jurors were
required to come forward as witnesses and to
give evidence before the monarch’s judges. Not
until the fourteenth century did jurors cease to
be witnesses and begin to assume their modern
role as triers of fact. This role was well estab-
lished in British common law when settlers
brought the tradition to America, and after the
United States declared its independence, all state
constitutions guaranteed the right of jury trial
in criminal cases.
Viewing the jury as central to the rights of
the new nation, the Founders firmly established
its role in the U.S. Constitution. They saw the
jury as not only a benefit to the accused, but also
as a check on the judiciary, much as Congress
exists as a check on the EXECUTIVE BRANCH.The
Constitution establishes and safeguards the right
to a trial by jury in four ways: Article III estab-
lishes this right in federal criminal cases; the
FIFTH AMENDMENT provides for grand juries, or
panels that review complaints in criminal cases,
hear the evidence of the prosecutor, and decide
whether to issue an indictment that will bring
the accused person to trial; the SIXTH AMEND-
MENT guarantees in serious federal criminal
cases the right to trial by a petit jury, the most
common form of jury; and the SEVENTH AMEND-
MENT provides for a jury trial in civil cases where
the amount in controversy exceeds $20.
The modern jury is largely a result of deci-
sions of the U.S. Supreme Court, which has
shaped and sometimes extended these constitu-
tional rights. One important decision was the
Court’s 1968 ruling in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391
U.S. 145, 88 S. Ct. 1444, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491, which
requires states to provide for jury trials in seri-
ous criminal cases. Prior to Duncan, states had
their own rules; Louisiana, for instance, required
juries only in cases where the possible punish-
ment was death or hard labor. The Court
declared that the right to a jury trial is funda-
mental. In cases in which the punishment
exceeds six months’ imprisonment, it ruled, the
DUE PROCESS CLAUSE of the FOURTEENTH
AMENDMENT requires that the protections of the
Sixth Amendment apply equally to federal and
