Essay On Jury System

History of the Jury

Juries are legal systems that have been used for over a thousand years. At the beginning juries were only used to provide local knowledge and information, and instead they acted more as a witness than decision makers. As time went on, in the fifteenth century, juries were independent assessors which they also assumed their modern role as deciders of fact. When the jury became a jury system, its origins was brought over by England, which was when the pilgrims in 1920 established a jury system in the New World.

When the pilgrims arrived in the New World, after three years they codified the colony’s laws. December 17, 1623, the colony officials said “that all criminal facts, and also matters of trespasse and debts between man and man should be tried by the verdict of twelve honest men to be impaneled by authority

in forme of a jury upon their oath.” This was a form of English common law for the pilgrims when they arrived in the New World.
When the first American Colony jury trial was held in 1630, they accused a man named John Billington. Billington was accused for murdering a fellow Mayflower colonist named John Newcomin. The jury found the defendant guilty of “willful murder by plain and notorious evidence,” and Billington was executed by being hung. In the same year, Puritans joined the Pilgrims which now is currently known as Massachusetts. The governing body (General Court) grew when the Massachusetts Bay Colony grew. Now the court had legislative and judicial powers.
Lawyer-clergyman Nathaniel Ward created the Body of Liberties. The Body of Liberties is a document that was published in 1641 which contained 100 liberties intended for guidance use for the General Court of the time period. In Article 29 of the Body of Liberties it reads that under the Liberties “free men” were able to serve two juries in a year. These jurors were picked “by the freemen of the Town where they dwell.”
“In all actions at law it shall be the libertie of the plaintiff and defendant by mutual consent to choose whether they will be tryed by the Bensh or a Jurie, unless it be where the law upon just reason hath otherwise determined. The like libertie shall be granted to all persons in Criminal cases.”
If a person was chosen to perform juror service but refused to do so, there were to be consequences. Even in the beginning of the seventeenth century, under the Colonial law (starting in 1647) it states that “if such person shall refuse to serve in, or take upon him any office, being legally chosen thereunto, he shall pay for such refusal, such fine, as the Town shall impose not exceeding Twenty shillings for one offence.” In today’s time if you refused to participate in your jury duties you would be fined two thousand dollars.
Four years after the Declaration of Independence was written, the Massachusetts Constitution was written by John Adams. The Massachusetts Constitution guaranteed the right of trial by jury in criminal and civil cases in the state constitution. In Article XII states that no one should be arrested, imprisoned, despoiled, or deprived of him, and that they can’t give any punishments without a trial by jury. Civil jury trials were cited three articles later.
Jurors then and now are much different in ways that previously jurors were only required to serve for thirty days. Now, jurors must serve for just one day or the duration of one trial. Today in the jury service, there are no exemptions. In the jury service you can only get ten disqualifications which mean lack of citizenship, certified medical inability to serve, and incarceration.
Today, the length of jury services usually doesn’t go longer than three days. Around ninety percent of jurors will complete their service in one day, while ninety-five percent will finish within three days or less. But in certain cases the trial can go longer for three days, the judge will then inform the prospective jurors, which gives them the opportunity to request a hardship excuse when they speak with the judge.
In the jury service there are certain people who must serve. Citizens in the united States that are aged eighteen or older who live in Massachusetts for at least six months or longer, and is not otherwise disqualified from any jury disqualification standards, are eligible for jury service. This can also include citizens who attend college in Massachusetts or residents of Massachusetts that study out of state.
In the Juries Act 1974, which is the present qualifications, a person must be at least aged between eighteen and seventy.

They also have to be registered to vote, which means as a parliamentary or local government elector. There are disqualifications too, for example you cannot be mentally disordered or be disqualified from jury service. Before these qualifications you needed a property qualification to be a juror. Meaning, you had to be the owner or tenant of a dwelling. Usually women and young people were less likely to own or even rent property which meaning they couldn’t serve on a jury trial.

Jury system qualifications and composition have changed over the years in the United States. In the beginning they were only used to provide local knowledge and information, while today they have become more complex. To creating different courts, such as, crown court, high courts, and county courts. To letting citizens of the United States participate and serve on a jury trial has changed dramatically since the fifteenth century. Since the days of the Pilgrims, jury service today remains one of the cornerstones of our system of

government.