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Trial By Jury
The right to a trial by jury, one of the most time-honored inheritances from Magna Carta in United States law, refers to the guarantee that courts will depend on a body of citizens to render judgments in most civil and criminal cases. The origins of the jury trial precede the creation of Magna Carta. However, Chapter 39 of King John's Magna Carta includes the guarantee that no free man may suffer punishment without "the lawful judgment of his peers." By this measure the barons sought to force the king to delegate part of his judicial authority to men who were peers of the individual on trial. While Magna Carta did not institute the jury system in the modern sense, its political intent -- to prevent the king's domination of the courts -- inspired later generations to view the right to a trial by jury as one of the basic safeguards of freedom from arbitrary government.
Eighteenth-century Americans viewed the right to a jury trial as one of the essential liberties of a free country. They saw the jury as an independent deliberative body that could refuse to cooperate with an unjust court or law. Although the United States Constitution recognized a right to a jury trial in criminal cases, the states demanded a constitutional amendment to guarantee a jury trial in civil cases as well, leading to the creation of the Seventh Amendment. |