The party opting for a special jury was charged a fee, which was 12 guineas just prior to abolition in England.

There were various other qualifications for a special juror, such as if a man was entitled to be called "Esquire," or if he was a merchant or a banker, but in practice the special jury list was largely made up on the basis of rateable qualification (i.e. liability for local property tax in England).

6) a petition for a special jury, that is jurors 'who dwell within the shire, and have lands and tenements to the yearly value of £20 to try a plea which it was supposed might be pleaded in abatement on a bill of appeal of murder.

[4] In the 18th century State Trials, the Crown was often able to secure guilty verdicts in the case of misdemeanours such as seditious libel, by the use of special juries, because of the narrow section of the population from which they were drawn.

The list of forty-eight is next, and at a subsequent period, reduced by striking off, before the same officer, the names of such twelve jurors as either party shall in a turn wish to have removed; and the names of the remaining twenty-four are then inserted in the writ of distringas as the jurors to be summoned for the cause, which persons are then summoned by the sheriff to attend the trial.