Right to trial by jury

“ A trial without a jury would be a violation of your constitutional rights. Of course, there are a few minor offenses, misdemeanors, and violations [pg 113] of city ordinances, which are sometimes tried without a jury, but in all infamous crimes, for which life may be taken as punishment or for which a person may be sent to the penitentiary, every one is entitled to a trial before a jury.
Is not this a sacred right? Don't you think that it is wise to permit people to have their rights and wrongs determined by a body of plain, honest men? ”

“ Unless such be the right and duty of jurors, it is plain that, instead of juries being a "palladium of liberty" a barrier against the tyranny and oppression of the government they are really mere tools in its hands, for carrying into execution any injustice and oppression it may desire to have executed.
But for their right to judge of the law, and the justice of the law, juries would be no protection to an accused person, even as to matters of fact; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law whatever, in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the laws of evidence. ”

“ It is, for instance, manifestly absurd to say that jurors have no moral responsibility for the enforcement of an unjust law, when they consent to render a verdict of guilty for the transgression of it; which verdict they know, or have good reason to believe, will be used by the government as a justification for inflicting a penalty.
It is absurd, also, to say that jurors have no moral responsibility for a punishment inflicted upon a man against law, when, at the dictation of a judge as to what the law is, they have consented to render a verdict against their own opinions of the law. ”

“ If the right to trial by jury were a fundamental right which goes wherever the jurisdiction of the United States extends, or if Congress, in framing laws for outlying territory belonging to the United States, was obliged to establish that system by affirmative legislation, it would follow that, no matter what the needs or capacities of the people, trial by jury, and in no other way, must be forthwith established, although the result may be to work injustice and provoke disturbance rather than to aid the orderly administration of justice. ”

“ In isolated instances recalcitrant or irrational juries may acquit rather than apply the law to the case before them. Our system has wrestled with this problem for hundreds of years, however, and important safeguards have been devised to minimize miscarriages of justice through the malfunctioning of the jury system. Perhaps to some extent we sacrifice efficiency, expedition, and economy, but the choice in favor of jury trial has been made, and retained, in the Constitution. We see no sound reason in logic or policy not to apply it in the area of criminal contempt. ”

“ The Constitution does not provide for the exercise of any discretion in a criminal case as to whether the person accused shall have a jury trial. The Constitution says, “The trial of all crimes except in cases of impeachment shall be by jury.”
The sixth amendment says, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.”
The Constitution does not say in some crimes. The Constitution says in all crimes. The Constitution does not say trial may be by jury. The Constitution says trial shall be by jury. ”

“ The right of the accused to be heard upon the facts to the jury, is not more his right, than the right of being heard upon the law to the jury. To deprive him, then, of the privilege of being heard upon the law to the jury, is as much a violation of his rights, as to deprive him of the privilege of being heard upon the facts to the jury.
The second, third, and fourth articles, exhibited by the House of Representatives, charge the defendant with a course of conduct upon a particular trial which affords many grounds of accusation. ”

“ And of course this constitutionally established power of a jury to determine guilt or innocence of a defendant charged with crime cannot be taken away by Congress, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part. Obviously, a necessary part of this power, vested by the Constitution in juries (or in judges when juries are waived) , is the exclusive right to decide whether evidence presented at trial is sufficient to convict. ”

“ No question is raised about the death penalty itself or about the propriety of jury participation in its imposition, but confining the power to impose the death penalty to the jury alone is held to burden impermissibly the right to a jury trial because it may either coerce or encourage persons to plead guilty or to waive a jury and be tried by the judge. ”

“ I think, at all events, this proposal to abolish jury trials in automobile accident cases also faces an almost insurmountable hurdle. The success of our British brothers in abolishing jury trials should not mislead us. American tradition has given the right to trial by jury a special place in public esteem that causes Americans generally to speak out in wrath at any suggestion to deprive them of it. ”

“ I would have more hesitation in setting aside these jury verdicts for insufficiency of the evidence were I confident that the jury had been allowed to make a free and unhampered determination of guilt or innocence as the jury trial provisions of Article III of the Constitution and the Sixth Amendment require. The right to trial by jury includes the right to have the jury and the jury alone find the facts of the case, including the cruical fact of guilt or innocence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Obviously this argument reflects substantial disrespect for the institution of trial by jury, although this method of trial is-and has been for centuries-an integral and highly esteemed part of our system of criminal justice enshrined in the Constitution itself. Nothing concrete is ever offered to support the innuendo that juries will not convict the same proportion of those guilty of contempt as would judges. ”

“ Nothing in the Sixth Amendment as construed by our prior decisions indicates that a defendant's right to a jury trial would be infringed where an appellate court invalidates one of two or more aggravating circumstances found by the jury, but affirms the death sentence after itself finding that the one or more valid remaining aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating evidence. Any argument that the Constitution requires that a jury impose the sentence of death or make the findings prerequisite to imposition of such a sentence has been soundly rejected by prior decisions of this Court. ”

“ But we are asked here to hold that an accused person cannot waive trial by jury, no matter how freely and understandingly he surrenders that right, unless he acts on a lawyer's advice. In other words, although a shrewd and experienced layman may, for his own sufficient reasons, conduct his own defense if he prefers to do so, nevertheless if he does do so the Constitution requires that he must defend himself before a jury and not before a judge. ”

“ The fact that a defendant ordinarily may dispense with a trial by admitting his guilt is no reason for accepting this layman's waiver of a jury trial. What the Constitution requires is that the 'trial' of a crime 'shall be by jury'. ”

“ This view of the matter, at any rate, puts it out of all doubt that the supposed abolition of the trial by jury, by the operation of this provision, is fallacious and untrue. The Legislature of the United States would certainly have full power to provide, that in appeals to the Supreme Court there should be no reëxamination of facts, where they had been tried in the original causes by juries. ”

“ The less rigorous enforcement of the rules of evidence, the greater informality in trial procedure-these are not the only advantages that the absence of a jury may afford to a layman who prefers to make his own defense. In a variety of subtle ways trial by jury may be restrictive of a layman's opportunities to present his case as freely as he wishes. And since trial by jury confers burdens as well as benefits, an accused should be permitted to forego its privileges when his competent judgment counsels him that his interests are safer in the keeping of the judge than of the jury. ”

“ This element is vital to the effective administration of criminal justice, not only in safeguarding the rights of the accused, but in encouraging popular acceptance of the laws and the necessary general acquiescence in their application. It can hardly be denied that trial by jury removes a great burden from the shoulders of the judiciary. Martyrdom does not come easily to a man who has been found guilty as charged by twelve of his neighbors and fellow citizens.
It is undoubtedly true that a judge can dispose of charges of criminal contempt faster and cheaper than a jury. ”

“ There may be unforeseeable circumstances that arise during a trial making its completion impossible, such as the failure of a jury to agree on a verdict. In such event the purpose of law to protect society from those guilty of crimes frequently would be frustrated by denying courts power to put the defendant to trial again. And there have been instances where a trial judge has discovered facts during a trial which indicated that one or more members of a jury might be biased against the Government of the defendant. ”

“ The Constitution requires no more than that trials be fairly conducted and that guaranteed rights of defendants be scrupulously respected. From a constitutional standpoint we cannot conclude that it is impermissible for a State to consider that the compassionate purposes of jury sentencing in capital cases are better served by having the issues of guilt and punishment determined in a single trial than by focusing the jury's attention solely on punishment after the issue of guilt has been determined. ”

“ The decision to extend the right to jury trial to criminal contempts ending in sentences greater than six months is the product of the views of four Justices who rest that conclusion on the Court's supervisory power and those of two others who believe that jury trials are constitutionally required in all but 'petty' criminal contempts. The four Justices who rely on the supervisory power also find the constitutional question a 'difficult' one. ”

“ Besides, it would be practically impossible to maintain government on such principles; for no government could enforce its civil judgments, unless it could support them by criminal ones, in case of resistance. A jury must therefore be paramount to legislation in both civil and criminal cases, or in neither. If they are paramount in neither, they are no protection to liberty. If they are paramount in both, then all legislation goes only for what it may chance to be worth in the estimation of a jury. ”

“ A defendant's only constitutional right concerning the method of trial is to an impartial trial by jury. We find no constitutional impediment to conditioning a waiver of this right on the consent of the prosecuting attorney and the trial judge when, if either refuses to consent, the result is simply that the defendant is subject to an impartial trial by jury-the very thing that the Constitution guarantees him. ”

“ The fact that these judgments may vary across cases is an inevitable consequence of the jury trial, that cornerstone of AngloAmerican judicial procedure. But when a punishment is authorized by law—if you kill you are subject to death— the fact that some defendants receive mercy from their jury no more renders the underlying punishment “cruel” than does the fact that some guilty individuals are never apprehended, are never tried, are acquitted, or are pardoned. ”

“ I can see no basis whatsoever in the language of the Constitution for allowing persons like appellant the benefit of those rights and yet denying them a jury trial, a right which is surely one of the fundamental aspects of criminal justice in the English-speaking world. ”

“ In other words, the government, in all its acts, must keep itself so clearly within the limits of justice, as that twelve men, taken at random, will all agree that it is in the right, or it must incur the risk of resistance, without any power to punish it. This is the mode in which the trial by jury operates to prevent the government from falling into the hands of a party, or a faction, and to keep it within such limits as all, or substantially all, the people are agreed that it may occupy. ”