“A Defense of the Jury System”
By: Thomas M. Ross, Esq.
The author is an assistant district attorney in Kings County (Brooklyn), New York.
The jury system is often attacked for delivering seemingly irrational verdicts in both criminal and
civil cases. Much of this criticism stems from some well-publicized verdicts that the public has
felt were unjustified and unreasonable. For example, when a fast-food company was forced to
pay $2.7 million in damages in a case brought by a woman who had spilled a cup of coffee on
her lap, the verdict was widely ridiculed. One congressman remarked, “Most people say this
doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
Juries are criticized for deciding cases based upon their prejudices or emotions, rather than
rationally applying the law to the evidence presented in a case. They are also criticized for
being incapable of understanding the complex financial and scientific issues that sometimes
arise in today’s court cases. For example, a jury in one case awarded a small company $35
million damages from a communications conglomerate for a patent infringement. A lawyer
involved in the case remarked that the jury of “unemployed laborers and housewives didn’t
understand that stuff.”
People who make these criticisms, however, are very much like people who criticize voters for
being irrational or ill-informed. Critics claim that many voters have only a superficial grasp of the
issues and, accordingly, are easily swayed by simplistic slogans and “thirty-second sound bites”
that obscure the complexity of the issues. Despite these criticisms of voters, hardly anyone
advocates abolishing the vote. After all, it has been said that “democracy is the worst form of
government -- except for all the others.”
Much of the criticism of the jury system is unjustified and stems from unfamiliarity with the
system. When people actually serve on a jury, they usually find that the cases receiving
widespread negative publicity are atypical -- most of their peers perform their duties
conscientiously, honestly, and fairly. For example, a survey of eight hundred jurors by the
National Law Journal in 1993 revealed that 75 percent of them would prefer to be tried by a
panel of their peers rather than by a panel of judges. Even judges themselves, who observe
juries daily, have confidence in most jurors. A survey of state judges in Texas found that 98
percent believed that juries do at least “moderately well” in reaching a “just and fair”
verdict. Furthermore, if those judges were a party in a civil lawsuit or were accused of a crime,
60 percent said that they would rather have their civil case decided by a jury than by a judge,
and 80 percent said they would rather have their criminal case decided by a jury.
Some people believe that having cases decided exclusively by judges would improve our justice
system. However, like jurors, judges are human beings, capable of making
misjudgments. Relying on judges, instead of juries, to decide cases does not guarantee that
every verdict will be considered fair by all. Furthermore, judges are not representative of society
as a whole. Although more women and minority members are being appointed as judges -- as
more women and minority members enter the legal profession itself -- judges are still mostly
Caucasian and male. Moreover, most judges, like most lawyers, generally come from middleclass and affluent backgrounds. Thus, the experiences and perspectives of women, minorities,
and poor and working-class people would be under-represented in a system in which all cases
were decided by judges.
On the other hand, jurors are drawn from both sexes, all ethnic groups, all economic
backgrounds, all adult ages, all religions, and all neighborhoods within a jurisdiction. (Indeed,
the only qualification a person needs to be a juror is the ability to be fair and
impartial). Consequently, a jury will reflect diverse viewpoints and experiences, rather than just
the viewpoint and experiences of a single judge. The jury system thus helps ensure that a
verdict will not be based on an individual’s biases or lack of understanding of particular people’s
experiences.
Human beings are not perfect -- we make mistakes, and sometimes we are swayed by our
emotions -- and that means that the jury system is also not perfect. Despite its flaws, the jury
system is the best means we have for maintaining justice in a democracy. No other system
guarantees that the perspectives of all citizens will be represented.