The Jury: A Very Short Introduction

by Renée Lettow Lerner

Overview

From ancient Athens to modern Asia, cultures have wanted ordinary people involved in making legal decisions. This Very Short Introduction charts juries from antiquity through the English-speaking world and beyond to Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Today, juries have become a symbol of democracy and popular legitimacy.

But in English-speaking countries, jury trials are declining. Civil juries have been virtually abolished everywhere except the United States, and plea bargaining is taking the place of criminal jury trials. In this book, Renée Lettow Lerner describes the benefits and challenges of using juries, including jury nullification. She considers how innovations from non-English-speaking countries may be key to the survival of citizen participation in the legal system.

Along the way, the book tells how a small German state invented a way of using jurors that is now found around the world. And it reveals why some defendants preferred to be crushed to death by weights rather than convicted by a jury.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190923914
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/28/2023
Series:	Very Short Introductions
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	4.56(w) x 6.86(h) x 0.41(d)

About the Author

Renée Lettow Lerner is the Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School. After graduating from Yale Law School, she was a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 2003 to 2005, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. She was a witness in a murder case in Paris, France, before a mixed panel of professional judges and lay jurors. Lerner is the author of History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (2009).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations

Introduction

1. Why use lay jurors? The ancient and medieval world

2. Reasons for lay jurors in early modern and modern societies

3. Jury nullification

4. Who serves as a juror?

5. The scope and structure of the jury

6. The limitations of lay jurors

7. Jury control and avoidance

8. The Future of the Jury

References

Further reading

Index

Editorial Reviews

"This is a fascinating short book written with an international emphasis by an American academic who, like many of her US colleagues, values English common law perhaps more than we do. The book introduces the subject with consideration of two films made in the same period. They are To Kill a Mockingbird and 12 Angry Men (pictured), both of which have very different outcomes but deal with jury trial." — David Pickup, The Gazette

"An excellent and fascinating short book written with an international emphasis." — Best Law Books of the Year 2023, The Law Gazzette

From the Publisher