Criminal Juries

Abstract

The jury represents the very cornerstone of the Anglo-American legal system, and a massive literature has built up over the course of this century as testimony to this fact. Three important sets of empirical questions can be isolated: whether the jury is a competent fact finder, able to assess evidence, understand legal instructions, and reach appropriate results; whether juries are representative of the communities from which they come and, where not, whether juries of representative composition would achieve significantly different verdicts; whether non-unanimous juries and juries smaller than twelve are inferior to traditional twelve-member juries. Findings on all these questions are inconsistent and in dispute. All of the empirical research is flawed by severe methodological limitations, but faulty interpretation of research results is a more important problem. A critical evaluation of the empirical research casts doubt on many of the claims made by researchers about the working of the jury. Part of the confusion results from different notions of the jury's role. The authors argue that research on the jury should be redirected toward methods which would make for a fuller appreciation of the jury's political function.