Jury: Legal Aspects

The Anti-Federalists who opposed ratification of the Constitution protested that the right to jury trial guaranteed by Article III was inadequate. Their objections led two years later to the Sixth Amendment's requirement that juries be drawn from "the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." For the Framers, jury impartiality did not require jurors to arrive at the courtroom wholly unaware of the circumstances of the case before them. Knowledge of local conditions and of the reputations of the defendant and of witnesses was thought to enhance the jurors' performance. Juries could serve their communitarian function only if they were local (see Abramson, pp. 22–30). State statutes now typically provide a right to trial before a jury drawn from the county in which the crime is alleged to have occurred.