Juries In-depth: Right to a jury trial

Civil cases in federal court

In civil cases in federal court, the right to a jury trial is governed by the Seventh Amendment:

In Suits at Common Law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried to a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the Common Law.

It is clear that the Amendment does not provide for jury trials in all federal civil cases because as of the time of the Amendment’s adoption in 1791 there were several kinds of cases that were not “Suits at Common Law,” like suits in equity or admiralty; those suits were not entitled to jury trials in 1791, and still are not. But subsequently many kinds of suits have come into being that did not exist at all in 1791, and the law/equity distinction was abolished in 1938. In this drastically changed legal landscape, it is sometimes difficult to decide what jury trial rights “shall be preserved” under the Seventh Amendment. One rule of thumb is that if the suit seeks money damages—the traditional remedy under the common law—there is almost surely a right to a jury trial, while if the suit seeks only equitable relief—like an injunction—there almost surely is no right to a jury trial. To read an excerpt from a legal journal summarizing the rules for determining whether a federal civil case is entitled to a jury trial, click here.

Since about 1980 there has been a question whether there is a “complex case” exception to the Seventh Amendment; that is, whether there are cases so complex that jurors cannot be expected to have the capacity to rationally decide them, so that submitting such cases to a jury would violate the Due Process Clause. While one federal circuit has held that a “complex case” exception exists, the Supreme Court has never directly ruled on the issue. The Supreme Court has, however, made several pronouncements related to the issue that do not clearly indicate how the Court would rule if the issue were presented to it. For a good discussion of this body of case law, see Jennifer F. Miller, Should Juries Hear Complex Patent Cases?, 2004 Duke L. & Technology Rev. 4.

Civil cases in state court

In civil cases in state court, the right to a jury trial is governed by the state’s constitution and statutes. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial applies only to federal courts, not to state courts. As a practical matter, though, most states make jury trials widely available for many kinds of civil cases above the level of small claims court.

Criminal cases

The governing law for criminal cases in both federal and state courts is the Sixth Amendment, which provides in part:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed . . . .

While this provision originally only applied to federal criminal prosecutions, in 1968 the Supreme Court decided that a right to trial by jury in most criminal cases is so fundamental that it constitutes an element of due process that the state is obligated to provide by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. However, the Court later decided that a right to jury trial is constitutionally required only for “serious” offenses. An offense is always “serious” if the potential punishment for the crime is greater than six months’ imprisonment, although sometimes additional statutory and regulatory penalties may make a crime “serious” even if the potential imprisonment is less than six months. Of course, states are free to provide the right to a jury trial even in cases where it is not constitutionally required. And a criminal defendant is always free to waive the right to a trial by jury.

A very significant line of Supreme Court cases, many of recent vintage, addresses the question whether a criminal defendant has a right to a jury trial on facts that could enhance the sentence. To read about this developing body of case law, click here.