Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-2007
Abstract
When I first began to study the jury more than thirty years ago, the topic of this Journal issue, jury systems around the world, was unthinkable. The use of juries, especially in civil litigation, had long been in decline, to the point of near extinction in England, the land of their birth, and the live question was whether the jury system would endure in the United States. It seemed clear that juries would not continue in their classic form, as many U.S. states, with the Supreme Court's eventual approval, mandated juries of less than twelve people and allowed verdicts to be returned by different supermajority votes. Although the federal government was precluded as a constitutional matter from reducing the size of its criminal juries below twelve or allowing non-unanimous verdicts in criminal cases, six-member juries were not only allowed in federal civil cases but became the standard.
Recommended Citation
Lempert, Richard O. "The Internationalization of Lay Legal Decision-Making: Jury Resurgence and Jury Research." Cornell International Law Journal 40, no. 2 (2007): 477-488.