Preliminary Thoughts on 'The Jury Trial Reinvented'

Abstract

Among this year’s takeaways is that, if any social entity wishes to survive, it must—like biological entities—adapt. Yet adaptation requires change—and law is notoriously slow to change. Since a functioning legal system is fundamental to society, however, it is no exaggeration to say that the law’s capacity to adapt will have ramifications that extend far beyond the legal profession. Although the past year’s biological crisis is far from over, its dual political crises—a crisis of democratic legitimacy and an epistemic crisis—pose far more fundamental threats to our collective future than COVID-19 ever did. I recently co-authored a paper with Professor Christopher T. Robertson of the Boston University School of Law, in which we suggest that a large part of the solution to our dual political crises is staring us in the face: The jury. In the 18th century, the Framers recognized that the jury as an institution was crucial for maintaining the public’s faith in democracy, as well as for preserving its faith in the justice system’s ability to discern truth. In our paper, we propose six reforms aimed at making the jury relevant in the 21st century. This essay was published in a newsletter produced by NYU Law School, and attempts to provide a synopsis in order to describe a forthcoming (full-length) law-review article: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3796292