Juries: They May be Broken, But We Can Fix Them

Great Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States continue to use juries to hear evidence and determine the facts in many criminal cases, although only the United States and New Zealand continue to require use of juries in most civil cases. Indeed, the jury system in this country is one of the most enduring aspects of our system. The only time most Americans, other than lawyers and litigants, see the inside of an actual courtroom is when they are called to serve as jurors. Juries have a proud history, both in this country and in England, where the jury as we know it developed. Juries usually do their job very well, and on occasion show extraordinary courage in the face of hostile or corrupt judges, delivering the verdict that justice demanded, even if it was not the verdict the judge wanted. As a trial judge, I presided over many jury trials in both civil and criminal trials. In all but two or three cases, I felt the jury reached an entirely appropriate verdict and the jurors were almost always conscientious and sincere in trying to do a proper job. But juries also have the ability to disappoint us, sometimes to the point of forcing us to question whether we should have jury trials at all. One of this country's great observers of human nature, Mark Twain, once complained that juries had become “the most ingenious and infallible agency for defeating justice that human wisdom could contrive.” 1

Our federal Constitution and all of it state counterparts guarantee