Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to hear evidence, make findings of fact, and render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Most trial juries are "petit juries", and consist of up to 15 people. A larger jury known as a grand jury has been used to investigate potential crimes and render indictments against suspects, and consists of between 16 and 23 jurors.
The jury system developed in England during the Middle Ages and is a hallmark of the English common law system. Juries are commonly used in countries whose legal systems derive from the British Empire, such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Ireland. They are not used in most other countries, whose legal systems are based upon European civil law or Islamic sharia law, although their use has been spreading. Instead, typically guilt is determined by a single person, usually a professional judge. Civil law systems that do not use juries may use lay judges instead.
The word jury has also been applied to randomly-selected bodies with other purposes, such as policy juries.
Types of jury
The "petit jury" hears the evidence in a trial as presented by both the plaintiff and the defendant . After hearing the evidence and often jury instructions from the judge, the group retires for deliberation, to consider a verdict. The majority required for a verdict varies. In some cases it must be unanimous, while in other jurisdictions it may be a majority or supermajority. A jury that is unable to come to a verdict is referred to as a hung jury.Grand jury
A grand jury, a type of jury now confined mostly to federal courts and some state jurisdictions in the United States and Liberia, determines whether there is enough evidence for a criminal trial to go forward. Grand juries carry out this duty by examining evidence presented to them by a prosecutor and issuing indictments, or by investigating alleged crimes and issuing presentments. Grand juries are usually larger than trial juries: for example, U.S. federal grand juries have between 16 and 23 members. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees Americans the constitutional right to be free from charges for "capital, or otherwise infamous" crimes unless they have been indicted by a grand jury, although this right applies only to federal law, not state law.In addition to their primary role in screening criminal prosecutions and assisting in the investigation of crimes, grand juries in California, Florida, and some other U.S. states are sometimes utilized to perform an investigative and policy audit function similar to that filled by the Government Accountability Office in the United States federal government and legislative state auditors in many U.S. states.
In Ireland and other countries in the past, the task of a grand jury was to determine whether the prosecutors had presented a true bill.
Coroner's jury
Another kind of jury, known as a coroner's jury can be convened in some common law jurisdiction in connection with an inquest by a coroner. A coroner is a public official, who is charged with determining the circumstances leading to a death in ambiguous or suspicious cases. A coroner's jury is generally a body that a coroner can convene on an optional basis in order to increase public confidence in the coroner's finding where there might otherwise be a controversy. In practice, coroner's juries are most often convened in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety by one governmental official in the criminal justice system toward another if no charges are filed against the person causing the death, when a governmental party such as a law enforcement officer is involved in the death.Advisory jury
An advisory jury is a non-binding jury empaneled by a judge to provide an opinion on factual issues during a trial. Unlike ordinary juries, whose verdicts are binding, an advisory jury’s findings serve only to inform the judge, who remains the final arbiter of fact and law. In the United States federal courts, advisory juries may be used in actions “not triable of right by a jury” under Rule 39. When an advisory jury is used, the court must make its own findings of fact and conclusions of law separately, as required by Rule 52. The practice originated in the English Court of Chancery, where factual issues were sometimes referred to common law courts for a jury’s opinion, a procedure later known as the feigned issue.Policy jury
Historical roots
The modern jury evolved out of the ancient custom of many ancient Germanic tribes whereby a group of men of certain social standing was used to investigate crimes and judge the accused. The same custom evolved into the vehmic court system in medieval Germany. In Anglo-Saxon England, juries investigated crimes. After the Norman Conquest, some parts of the country preserved juries as the means of investigating crimes. The use of ordinary members of the community to consider crimes was unusual in ancient cultures, but was nonetheless also found in ancient Greece.The modern jury trial evolved out of this custom in the mid-12th century during the reign of Henry II. Juries, usually 6 or 12 men, were an "ancient institution" even then in some parts of England, at the same time as Members consisted of representatives of the basic units of local government—hundreds and villages. Called juries of presentment, these men testified under oath to crimes committed in their neighbourhood. The Assize of Clarendon in 1166 caused these juries to be adopted systematically throughout the country. The jury in this period was "self-informing," meaning it heard very little evidence or testimony in court. Instead, jurors were recruited from the locality of the dispute and were expected to know the facts before coming to court. The source of juror knowledge could include first-hand knowledge, investigation, and less reliable sources such as rumour and hearsay.
Between 1166 and 1179 new procedures including a division of functions between the sheriff, the jury of local men, and the royal justices ushered in the era of the English Common Law. Sheriffs prepared cases for trial and found jurors with relevant knowledge and testimony. Jurors 'found' a verdict by witnessing as to fact, even assessing and applying information from their own and community memory—little was written at this time and what was, such as deeds and writs, were subject to fraud. Royal justices supervised trials, answered questions as to law, and announced the court's decision which was then subject to appeal. Sheriffs executed the decision of the court. These procedures enabled Henry II to delegate authority without endowing his subordinates with too much power.:293
In 1215 the Catholic Church removed its sanction from all forms of the ordeal—procedures by which suspects up to that time were 'tested' as to guilt. With trial by ordeal banned, establishing guilt would have been problematic had England not had forty years of judicial experience. Justices were by then accustomed to asking jurors of presentment about points of fact in assessing indictments; it was a short step to ask jurors if they concluded the accused was guilty as charged.:358
The so-called Wantage Code provides an early reference to a jury-like group in England, wherein a decree issued by King Æthelred the Unready provided that in every Hundred "the twelve leading thegns together with the reeve shall go out and swear on the relics which are given into their hands, that they will not accuse any innocent man nor shield a guilty one." The resulting Wantage Code formally recognized legal customs that were part of the Danelaw.
The testimonial concept can also be traced to Normandy before 1066, when a jury of nobles was established to decide land disputes. In this manner, the Duke, being the largest land owner, could not act as a judge in his own case.
One of the earliest antecedents of modern jury systems is the jury in ancient Greece, including the city-state of Athens, where records of jury courts date back to 500 BCE. These juries voted by secret ballot and were eventually granted the power to annul unconstitutional laws, thus introducing the practice of judicial review. In modern justice systems, the law is considered "self-contained" and "distinct from other coercive forces, and perceived as separate from the political life of the community," but "all these barriers are absent in the context of classical Athens. In practice and in conception the law and its administration are in some important respects indistinguishable from the life of the community in general."
In juries of the Justices in Eyre, the bailiff of the hundred would choose 4 electors who in turn chose 12 others from their hundred, and from these were selected 12 jurors.
17th-18th century
From the 17th century until 1898 in Ireland, Grand Juries also functioned as local government authorities.In 1730, the British Parliament passed the Bill for Better Regulation of Juries. The Act stipulated that the list of all those liable for jury service was to be posted in each parish and that jury panels would be selected by lot, also known as sortition, from these lists. Its aim was to prevent middle-class citizens from evading their responsibilities by financially putting into question the neutrality of the under-sheriff, the official entrusted with impaneling juries. Prior to the Act, the main means of ensuring impartiality was by allowing legal challenges to the sheriff's choices. The new provisions did not specifically aim at establishing impartiality but had the effect of reinforcing the authority of the jury by guaranteeing impartiality at the point of selection.
In some American colonies and less often in England, juries also handed down rulings on the law in addition to rulings on the facts of the case. The American grand jury was also indispensable to the American Revolution by challenging the Crown and Parliament, including by indicting British soldiers, refusing to indict people who criticized the crown, proposing boycotts and called for the support of the war after the Declaration of Independence.
In the late 18th century, English and colonial civil, criminal and grand juries played major roles in checking the power of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.