Jury system

“ But, and this is another difference between the real and the ideal in the jury system, we have in a large number of cases the more extraordinary spectacle of a jury solemnly sitting though a trial for the purpose of listening to the evidence and forming their own opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, and then being instructed by the court as to the verdict they shall find. It is, as every one knows, the most common of occurrences for the judge to lecture the jury upon their verdict and to refuse to receive it. ”

“ Unless we proceed on the basis that the jury will follow the court's instructions where those instructions are clear and the circumstances are such that the jury can reasonably be expected to follow them, the jury system makes little sense. Based on faith that the jury will endeavor to follow the court's instructions, our system of jury trial has produced one of the most valuable and practical mechanisms in human experience for dispensing substantial justice. ”

“ The purpose of the jury system is to impress upon the criminal defendant and the community as a whole that a verdict of conviction or acquittal is given in accordance with the law by persons who are fair. The verdict will not be accepted or understood in these terms if the jury is chosen by unlawful means at the outset. Upon these considerations, we find that a criminal defendant suffers a real injury when the prosecutor excludes jurors at his or her own trial on account of race. ”

“ Value of Jury System.—The value of the jury in past history as a bulwark against aggression by the Crown or executive cannot be over-rated, but the working of the institution has not escaped criticism. Its use protracts civil trials. The jurors are usually unwilling and are insufficiently remunerated; and jury trials in civil cases often drag out much longer and at greater expense than trials by a judge alone, and the proceedings are occasionally rendered ineffective by the failure of the jurors to agree. ”

“ The advocates of the abandonment of the jury system point to this court as their strongest argument. No time is lost in the selection of a jury,—a matter often of hours in the General Sessions in cases of no greater importance. There is no opening address on the part of the district attorney or counsel for the defendant,—the written statement or information sworn to by the complainant being entirely sufficient for the court. Cross-examination is cut down to its essentials and tests of "credibility" are almost unnecessary. ”

“ It cannot be disputed that, without the overt, significant participation of the government, the peremptory challenge system, as well as the jury trial system of which it is a part, simply could not exist. As discussed above, peremptory challenges have no utility outside the jury system, a system which the government alone administers. In the federal system, Congress has established the qualifications for jury service, see 28 U.S.C. § 1865, and has outlined the procedures by which jurors are selected. ”

“ Two men must forfeit their lives after having been convicted of murder not by a jury of their peers, not by a jury chosen from a fair cross-section of the community, but y a jury drawn from a special group of individuals singled out in a manner inconsistent with the democratic ideals of the jury system. That group was chosen because they possessed some trait or characteristic which distinguished them from the general panel of jurors, some qualification which made them more desirable for the State's purpose of securing the conviction of the two petitioners. ”

“ In civil causes, where a decision follows the evidence, it is difficult to see why substantial justice would not be done by a majority, or, at most, a two-thirds majority verdict; but we cannot abandon the old rule in criminal cases without trespassing on the sacred right of the accused to the benefit of every reasonable doubt; for a divided jury, in itself, raises a doubt as to his guilt. The law recently passed making it a misdemeanor for a man to ask for appointment as a juror, or for an attorney to seek a place for a friend, is a step in the right direction. ”

“ The Constitution has not withdrawn the administration of criminal justice, of which the jury system is a part, from the States. It does command that no State purposefully make jury service turn on color. ”

“ And, its exercise must always accord with the fact that the proper functioning of the jury system, and, indeed, our democracy itself, requires that the jury be a truly representative of the community', and not the organ of any special group or class. If that requirement is observed, the officials charged with choosing federal jurors may exercise some discretion to the end that competent jurors may be called. ”

“ The fact that the prosecutor appears every day before the general panel of jurors in the Part to which he is assigned throughout the term and soon gains among them the reputation of being fair, and that he on his side knows their peculiarities and idiosyncrasies is what makes the jury system in criminal cases work more accurately and accomplish better results than in civil trials, where the jury usually has never seen either counsel before and probably distrusts both of them. ”

“ Jury trial is more than a principle of justice applicable to individual cases. It is s system of administration of the business of the State. While we may believe (and I do believe) that the right of jury trial is fundamental, it does not follow that the particulars of according that right must be uniform. We should be ready to welcome state variations which do not impair — indeed, which may advance — the theory and purpose of trial by jury. ”

“ To preserve the integrity of the jury system, prospective jurors need to be educated not only about the size of a jury verdict, but also the basis of the verdict and the power of the trial court to rectify inappropriate verdicts. ”

“ In Williams the Court strangely does an about-face. Rather than bind the States by the hitherto undeviating and unquestioned federal practice of 12-member juries, the Court holds, based on a poll of state practice, that a six-man jury satisfies the guarantee of a trial by jury in a federal criminal system and consequently carries over to the States. ”

“ He charged him with contempt for refusing to answer. We reversed the conviction, saying,
'It would be very strange if our system of law permitted a judge to act as a grand jury and then try the very persons accused as a result of his investigations. Perhaps no State has ever forced a defendant to accept grand jurors as proper trial jurors to pass on charges growing out of their hearings. A single 'judge-grand jury' is even more a part of the accusatory process than an ordinary lay grand juror. ”

“ The Court has the right to excuse a juror if he is not on the assessment roll. The Supreme Court has decided that a man has the right to be investigated by a Grand Jury of nineteen men who are qualified according to the statute and none others. It is not necessary to take for grand jurors the nineteen whose names are first drawn from the box. ”

“ He is not entitled to set limits to the investigation that the grand jury may conduct. The Fifth Amendment and the statutes relative to the organization of grand juries recognize such a jury as being possessed of the same powers that pertained to its British prototype, and in our system examination of witnesses by a grand jury need not be preceded by a formal charge against a particular individual. ”

“ Under these statutes the prosecution generally possesses a substantial number of challenges. [20]
The system of struck juries also has its roots in ancient common-law heritage. [21] Since striking a jury allowed both sides a greater number of challenges and an opportunity to become familiar with the entire venire list, it was deemed an effective means of obtaining more impartial and better qualified jurors. Accordingly, it was used in causes of 'great nicety' or 'where the sheriff (responsible for the jury list) was suspected of partiality.' 3 Bl.Comm. ”

“ We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read. ”

“ The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty, and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury. ”

“ Whatever may be the power of the states in respect of grand and petit juries, it is firmly settled that the Constitution absolutely forbids the trial and conviction, in a Federal civil tribunal, of any one charged with crime, otherwise than upon the presentment or indictment of a grand jury, and the unanimous verdict of a petit jury, composed, as at common law, of twelve jurors. ”

“ Should, therefore, a jury be adopted in the inferior court, it would only be a needless expense, since, on an appeal, the determination of that jury, even on questions of fact, however honest and upright, is to be of no possible effect. The Supreme Court is to take up all questions of fact, to examine the evidence relative thereto, to decide upon them in the same manner as if they had never been tried by a jury; nor is trial by jury secured in criminal cases. It is true, that, in the first instance, in the inferior court, the trial is to be by jury. ”

“ This is destroying the vital principle of the trial by jury itself, which is that the legislation of the government shall be subjected to the judgment of a tribunal, taken indiscriminately from the whole people, without any choice by the government, and over which the government can exercise no control. If the government can select the jurors, it will, of course, select those whom it supposes will be favorable to its enactments. And an exclusion of any of the freemen from eligibility is a selection of those not excluded. ”

“ It has also been said, that the right of the judge to instruct the jury upon the weight of testimony has been ruled as the established doctrine of this court. If this be so, it is a revelation which the friends of jury trial, in its full integrity and independence, will grieve to learn, and will be disposed to regard as a demolition by this court of that sacred ark of civil liberty, for which, by the greatest services it may render, it can hardly ever be able to atone. ”

“ And though the powers of a judge even when acting as a one-man grand jury may be, as Michigan holds, judicial in their nature, [11] the due process clause may apply with one effect on the judge's grand jury investigation, but with quite a different effect when the judge-grand jury suddenly makes a witness before it a defendant in a contempt case.
Here we are concerned, not with petitioner's rights as a witness in a secret grand jury session, but with his rights as a defendant in a contempt proceeding. ”

“ As a review of the discretion of stipendiary magistrates in committing cases for trial, the intervention of the grand jury is in most cases superfluous; and even when the committing justices are not lawyers, it is now a common opinion that their views as to the existence of a case to be submitted to a jury for trial should not be over-ridden by a lay tribunal sitting in private, and in this opinion many grand jurors concur. But the abolition of the grand jury would involve great changes in criminal procedure for which parliament seems to have no appetite. ”

“ But it is our duty as well as the state's to see to it that throughout the procedure for bringing him to justice he shall enjoy the protection which the Constitution guarantees. Where, as in this case, timely objection has laid bare a discrimination in the selection of grand jurors, the conviction cannot stand because the Constitution prohibits the procedure by which it was obtained.'
A grand jury serves a high function. ”

“ If congress has the power to deprive the defendant of his right to a trial by jury for one trial, and to put him, if convicted, to an appeal to another court, to secure a trial by jury, it is difficult to see why it may not also have the power to provide for several trials by a court, without a jury, on several successive convictions, before allowing a trial by a jury. ”

“ A body of men, so free from judicial control, was not a common-law jury; nor was a trial by them a trial by jury, within the meaning of the seventh amendment to the constitution. It was no more a jury, in the constitutional sense, than it would have been if it had consisted, as has been more usual in statutes authorizing trials by a jury before a justice of the peace, of less than 12 men. ”

“ In essence, the right to jury trial guarantees to the criminally accused a fair trial by a panel of impartial, 'indifferent' jurors. The failure to accord an accused a fair hearing violates even the minimal standards of due process. ”

“ Even more than this, the names of the twelve jurymen and of the two supplementary jurymen will certainly be published in the French newspapers with details about the men themselves and their professions, before the trial begins, and this of itself forms an abuse which must inevitably react on the absolute impartiality of a jury, which should be a first necessity of any criminal trial in any country, for numbers of newspapers will tell them what they ought to do and what their verdict ought to be. ”

“ From these considerations it follows that the only question which we are called upon to determine is whether, after a regular conviction and sentence, a suggestion of a then existing insanity is made, it is necessary, in order to constitute due process of law, that the question so presented should be tried by a jury in a judicial proceeding surrounded by all the safeguards and requirements of a common-law jury trial, and even although by the state law full and adequate administrative and quasi judicial process is created for the purpose of investigatiing the suggestion. ”