[lbo-talk] jury duty

Jerry Monaco monacojerry at gmail.com
Tue May 16 18:10:21 PDT 2006


I am doing this from memory so please somebody correct me.

As you probably know there were juries in ancient city-states, though most prominently Athens and Rome. In Athens the jury was a jury of citizens randomly selected and given a wage that comapred well with a workman's day of work. If I remember correctly Socrates was tried in front of 501 jurors. The number of jurors could vary according to the case. You will notice there could be no jury deliberation with 501 people voting. Roman juries were poltically contentious but there was some amount of deliberation among the jurors. At the end of the nineteenth century the jury system was introduced into parts of the Austo-Hungarian empire but I don't know how long it lasted. Other places in the world have juries but they are not quite organized in the same way as our jury system. For instance a form of the jury system was introduced by the Napoleonic Code, but in the cases where the jury sits it often sits co-equally with a panel of (3?) judges. The juries in under the Napoleonic code decide questions of fact but not actual guilt or innocence which is decided by the panel of judges. (Camus's Meursault in the Stranger is tried before a jury, by the way. Also the French Revolution had introduced the Anglo jury system but there was no standardization of use as far as I can remember.) On the continent in the middle ages there were often juries for special cases, trial of a noble, some ecclesiatical trials, etc. but often these were not juries of peers or neighbors but of special qualification. The revolutions of 1848 introuduced the jury system in Germany but it was a variety of the French system. Also the question is complicated with Germany because during many parts of their history they have had professional judges deliberating with lay judges.

A great book on the history of the U.S. jury system:

We, the Jury by Jeffrey Abramson.

Again I plead for someone to add to this or correct my memory.

Jerry

On 5/16/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Are juries mainly an Anglo-American thing, or are they in wide use
> elsewhere?
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/

His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/

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