Unlocking the Jury Box

The Founders of our nation understood that no idea was more central to our Bill of Rights  — indeed, to government of the people, by the people, and for the people — than the citizen jury. It was cherished not only as a bulwark against tyranny but also as an essential means of educating Americans in the habits and duties of citizenship. By enacting the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments to the Constitution, the Framers sought to install the right to trial by jury as a cornerstone of a free society. . . .        

The Framers of the Constitution felt that juries — because they were composed of ordinary citizens and because they owed no financial allegiance to the government — were indispensable to thwarting the excesses of powerful and overzealous government officials. The jury trial was the only right explicitly included in each of the state constitutions penned between 1776 and 1789. And the criminal jury was one of few rights explicitly mentioned in the original federal constitution proposed by the Philadelphia Convention...

The jury's democratic role was intertwined with other ideas enshrined in the Bill of Rights, including free speech and citizen militias. The jury was an essential democratic institution because it was a means by which citizens could engage in self-government. Nowhere else — not even in the voting booth —  must Americans come together in person to deliberate over fundamental matters of justice. Jurors face a solemn obligation to overlook personal differences and prejudices to fairly administer the law and do justice. . . .

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