Jury: Legal Aspects - Origins, The Scope Of The Right, Jury Size, Unanimity, Vicinage, Selecting Jurors
trial criminal amendment constitution
In 1791, the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guaranteed every criminal defendant the right to trial "by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." This provision was essentially redundant. Article III, section 2 of the Constitution had already provided, "The trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury." The right to jury trial in criminal
cases was among the few guarantees of individual rights enumerated in the Constitution of 1789, and it was the only guarantee to appear in both the original document and the Bill of Rights.
Until 1968, the Supreme Court insisted that the Sixth Amendment afforded the right to jury trial only in the federal courts, but that year, in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968), the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause "incorporated" this Sixth Amendment right and made it applicable to the states. The Court's opinion declared, "Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge."
Prior to Duncan, every state had guaranteed the right to jury trial in felony cases. Moreover, prior to the Constitution and even to the Declaration of Independence, the First Continental Congress's Declaration of Rights of 1774 had proclaimed the right to jury trial. The right to a jury trial in America was in fact as old as James I's charter to the company that settled Jamestown in 1607. Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "Were I called upon to decide whether the people had best be omitted in the Legislative or Judiciary department, I would say it is better to leave them out of the Legislative" (Jefferson, vol. 15, p. 283). William Blackstone called the right to jury trial "the palladium of English liberty" (vol. 3, p. * 379).
Additional Topics
In 1166, during the reign of Henry II in England, the Assize of Clarendon directed juries of twelve people in each community to reveal and accuse members of the community believed to have committed crimes. These juries, the progenitors of modern grand juries, did not decide criminal cases; their function was to serve, in the absence of professional police forces, as the king's eyes and ears…
The Sixth Amendment right to jury trial does not extend to petty offenses. Baldwin v. New York, 399 U.S. 66 (1970), held, however, that "no offense can be deemed 'petty' . . . where imprisonment for more than six months is authorized." An offense punishable by less than six months' imprisonment is presumed to be petty, but sanctions other than imprisonment may be…
Although the Supreme Court previously said that the Sixth Amendment required juries of twelve, the Court in 1970 declared this traditional number a "historical accident, wholly without significance except to mystics." It concluded in Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78 (1970), that the Constitution allowed juries of six. In support of its claim that there was "no discernable diff…
In Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972), four Supreme Court justices concluded that conviction by a vote of 10-to-2 did not violate the Sixth Amendment. Four justices dissented, arguing
that the amendment requires juror unanimity. The remaining justice, Justice Powell, agreed with the dissenters' construction of the Sixth Amendment but rejected the view that "all of the element…
Statutory eligibility: some history. At the time of the ratification of the Sixth Amendment, every state limited jury service to men, and every state except Vermont limited jury service to property owners or taxpayers. The early nineteenth century, however, saw the rapid triumph of "universal sufferage," a term used without any sense of irony to describe the enfranchisement of adult …
Until the 1960s, most state and federal courts employed a "key man" system in which jury commissioners or court clerks asked prominent citizens, politicians, or other "key men" to nominate prospective jurors. Officials then summoned jurors from the lists these "key men" had provided. Some states in New England and the South still retain this system, and al…
A defendant who claims that a jury panel was improperly summoned may file a "challenge to the array" or a "motion to quash the venire." This challenge may be based on statutory grounds, or it may allege improper exclusion under either the fourteenth amendment's equal protection clause or the sixth amendment's right to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section…
The voir dire examination. The examination of prospective jurors by lawyers and judges at the beginning of the jury selection process is called the voir dire. Judges sometimes require prospective jurors to complete questionnaires prior to their examination in the courtroom. In the O. J. Simpson case, prospective jurors were directed to answer 294 multiple-part questions, including: "Which t…
The Constitution's prohibition of double jeopardy precludes the review or revision of a jury's decision to acquit (United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82 (1978)), and review of a jury's decision to convict is highly deferential. In America, unlike most European nations, appellate review focuses more on trial and pretrial procedures than on trial outcomes. In the federal courts an…
In England, although jury nullification was recognized and even welcomed in some cases, juries never acquired any official authority to disregard the instructions of judges and resolve questions of law for themselves. In America following the Revolution, however, the authority of juries to resolve issue of law was frequently confirmed by constitutions, statutes, and judicial decisions. How America…
——. "Racial Quotas and the Jury." Duke Law Journal 44 (1995): 704–743. …
Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U.S. 625 (1972). Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972). Apprendi v. New Jersey, 120 S. Ct. 2348 (2000). Baldwin v. New York, 399 U.S. 66 (1970). Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U.S. 223 (1978). Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986). Blanton v. City of North Las Vegas, 489 U.S. 538 (1989). Burch v. Louisiana, 441 U.S. 130 (1979). Bushell's Case, 124 Eng. Rep. 1006 (Commo…
Citing this material
Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information.
Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document.
User Comments