Jury trial

From the beginning of the republic and in the majority of civil cases towards the end of the empire, there were tribunals with the characteristics of the jury in the sense that Roman judges were civilian, lay and not professionals.

Roman law provided for the yearly selection of judices, who would be responsible for resolving disputes by acting as jurors, with a praetor performing many of the duties of a judge.

The law was as follows: The peregrine praetor (literally, traveling judge) within the next ten days after this law is passed by the people or plebs shall provide for the selection of 450 persons in this State who have or have had a knight's census ... provided that he does not select a person who is or has been plebeian tribune, quaestor, triumvir capitalis, military tribune in any of the first four legions, or triumvir for granting and assigning lands, or who is or has been in the Senate, or who has fought or shall fight as a gladiator for hire ... or who has been condemned by the judicial process and a public trial whereby he cannot be enrolled in the Senate, or who is less than thirty or more than sixty years of age, or who does not have his residence in the city of Rome or within one mile of it, or who is the father, brother, or son of any above-described magistrate, or who is the father, brother, or son of a person who is or has been a member of the Senate, or who is overseas.

[5] The Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence requires two notaries to collect a minimum of twelve eyewitness statements in certain legal cases, including those involving unregistered marriages and land disputes.

An 1873 draft on criminal procedure produced by the Prussian Ministry of Justice proposed to abolish the jury and replace it with the mixed system, causing a significant political debate.

"The English king Æthelred the Unready set up an early legal system through the Wantage Code of Ethelred, one provision of which stated that the twelve leading thegns (minor nobles) of each wapentake (a small district) were required to swear that they would investigate crimes without a bias.

Article 39 of Magna Carta read: Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, aut desseisetur de libero tenemento, vel libertatibus, vel liberis consuetudinibus suis, aut utlagetur, aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur, nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem terrae.It is translated thus by Lysander Spooner in his Essay on the Trial by Jury: No free man shall be captured, and or imprisoned, or disseised of his freehold, and or of his liberties, or of his free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we proceed against him by force or proceed against him by arms, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, and or by the law of the land.Although it says "and or by the law of the land", this in no manner can be interpreted as if it were enough to have a positive law, made by the king, to be able to proceed legally against a citizen.

And as the practice was anciently common of fining, imprisoning, or otherwise punishing the jurors, merely at the discretion of the court, for finding a verdict contrary to the direction of these dependent judges; it is obvious, that juries were then no manner of security to the liberty of the subject.The first paragraph of the act that abolished the Star Chamber repeats the clause on the right of a citizen to be judged by his peers: WHEREAS by the great charter many times confirmed in parliament, it is enacted, That no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised of his freehold or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed or exiled or otherwise destroyed, and that the King will not pass upon him, or condemn him; but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land ...In 1670 two Quakers charged with unlawful assembly, William Penn and William Mead, were found not guilty by a jury.

Many British colonies, including the United States, adopted the English common law system in which trial by jury is an important part.

These "peers of the accused" are responsible for listening to a dispute, evaluating the evidence presented, deciding on the facts, and making a decision in accordance with the rules of law and their jury instructions.

In Brazil, trials by jury are applied in cases of voluntary crimes against life, such as first and second degree murder, forced abortion and instigation of suicide, even if only attempted.

[28][29] Others contend that there never was a golden age of jury trials, but rather that juries in the early nineteenth century (before the rise of plea bargaining) were "unwitting and reflexive, generally wasteful of public resources and, because of the absence of trained professionals, little more than slow guilty pleas themselves", and that the guilty-plea system that emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century was a superior, more cost-effective method of achieving fair outcomes.

[30] Robert Burns argues that the jury trial provides the discipline and rigor needed to limit raw discretion of judges and other bureaucrats.

[41] In New South Wales, a majority verdict can only be returned if the jury consists of at least 11 jurors, and the deliberation has occurred for at least eight hours or for a period that the court considers reasonable having regard to the nature and complexity of the case.

"[45] Chiang issued a statement at the time saying "she was disappointed with the judgment because she has been deprived of a jury trial, an opportunity to be judged by her fellow citizens and the constitutional benefit protected by the Basic Law".

In 1665, a petit jury in Madras composed of twelve English and Portuguese jurors acquitted a Mrs. Ascentia Dawes, who was on trial for the murder of her enslaved servant.

In Presidency towns (such as Calcutta, Bombai and Madras), Crown Courts employed juries to judge European and Indian defendants in criminal cases.

[50] These new regulations stipulated that criminal juries were only mandatory in the High courts of Presidency towns; in all other parts of British India, they were optional and rarely utilized.

On May 28, 2004, the Diet of Japan enacted a law requiring selected citizens to take part in criminal court trials of certain severe crimes to make decisions together with professional judges, both on guilt and on the sentence.

The impartiality of jury trials had been brought into question for several years prior, but their abolition was expedited by the notorious Mona Fandey case in 1993.

Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, a former trial lawyer, explained why he supported the policy to the BBC and in his memoirs, saying, "I had no faith in a system that allowed the superstition, ignorance, biases, and prejudices of seven jurymen to determine guilt or innocence.

More recently it has been argued that, apart from being a racially divided country, South African society was, and still is, characterised by significant class differences and disparities of income and wealth that could make re-introducing the jury system problematic.

"[62] On 28 March 2014, the Oscar Pistorius trial was adjourned due to the illness of one of the two assessors that assist the judge on questions of fact (rather than law), in place of the jury, to reach a verdict.

This practice was declared to violate the rule of presumption of innocence according to article 6.2. of the European Convention on Human Rights, by the Supreme Court of Sweden, in 2012.

Because the unified Swiss Code of Criminal Procedure (set to enter into force in 2011) does not provide for jury trials or lay judges, however, they are likely to be abolished in the near future.

In the United States, it is understood that juries usually weigh the evidence and testimony to determine questions of fact, while judges usually rule on questions of law, although the dissenting justices in the Supreme Court case Sparf et al. v. U.S. 156 U.S. 51 (1895), generally considered the pivotal case concerning the rights and powers of the jury, declared: "It is our deep and settled conviction, confirmed by a re-examination of the authorities that the jury, upon the general issue of guilty or not guilty in a criminal case, have the right, as well as the power, to decide, according to their own judgment and consciences, all questions, whether of law or of fact, involved in that issue."

[85] There has been much debate about the advantages and disadvantages of the jury system, the competence or lack thereof of jurors as fact-finders, and the uniformity or capriciousness of the justice they administer.

[93] As of 1978, eleven U.S. states allow juries in any aspect of divorce litigation, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

"[95] In Joseph Story's 1833 treatise Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, he wrote, "[I]t is a most important and valuable amendment; and places upon the high ground of constitutional right the inestimable privilege of a trial by jury in civil cases, a privilege scarcely inferior to that in criminal cases, which is conceded by all to be essential to political and civil liberty."

However, most states give the defendant the absolute right to waive a jury trial, and it has become commonplace to find such a waiver in routine contracts as a 2004 Wall Street Journal article states: For years, in an effort to avoid the slow-moving wheels of the U.S. judicial system, many American companies have forced their customers and employees to agree to settle disputes outside of the courts, through private arbitration ... but the rising cost of arbitration proceedings has led some companies to decide they might be better off in the court system after all [so long as] they don't have to tangle with juries.