How old is the jury system

It was during the Seventeenth Century that the jury emerged as a safeguard for the criminally accused. Thus, in the Eighteenth Century, Blackstone could commemorate the institution as part of a ''strong and two-fold barrier.

A right to jury trial is granted to criminal defendants in order to prevent oppression by the Government. Those who wrote our constitutions knew from history and experience that it was necessary to protect against unfounded criminal charges brought to eliminate enemies and against judges too responsive to the voice of higher authority.

The framers of the constitutions strove to create an independent judiciary but insisted upon further protection against arbitrary action. Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge. Fear of unchecked power.

A Grand Jury derives its name from the fact that it usually has a greater number of jurors than a trial petit jury. One of the earliest concepts of Grand Juries dates back to early Greece where the Athenians used an accusatory body. During the years to , one of the Dooms laws stated that for each men, 12 were to be named to act as an accusing body.

They were cautioned "not to accuse an innocent man or spare a guilty one. The Grand Jury can also be traced to the time of the Norman conquest of England in There is evidence that the courts of that time summoned a body of sworn neighbors to present crimes that had come to their knowledge.

Since the members of that accusing jury were selected from small jurisdictions, it was natural that they could present accusations based on their personal knowledge. It was signed in In the early s, British subjects, whose rights were threatened at home, began sailing for America. The rights that they had been guaranteed in the Magna Carta, including trial by jury, were reasserted in the colonial charters.

The right to trial by jury was included in the First Charter of Virginia, which was drafted in Great Britain in —and that right was guaranteed in all subsequent colonial charters. The British rulers suppressed the right in order to limit challenges against British authority and quell calls for American independence. Almost immediately, efforts to limit trial by jury became a focal point for revolutionaries.

The fervor continued into , when the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in Following the Declaration of Independence, each colony had to write a new state constitution. These constitutions were based on the principles and rights outlined in the Magna Carta and the British Bill of Rights, as well as interpretation of British common law by men such as Thomas Coke and William Blackstone. A convention was called in Philadelphia in to draft a new one.

After months of heated debate, a draft was presented to the convention on September 12, The draft allowed trial by jury in criminal cases, but not in civil cases. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts cited the omission. A tribunal without juries would be a Star Chamber in civil cases.

Delegates attempted to amend the constitution to include jury trials in civil cases. Opponents to the change argued that it was unnecessary since the right was preserved in the state constitutions.

The amendment failed on September The new United States Constitution was signed on September 17, but it still had to be ratified by the states. Many southern states refused to ratify the document because it did not include a Bill of Rights. As the states debated ratification, the political leaders split into two groups—the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The Federalists, led by people like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, championed a strong, centralized government.

The Anti-Federalists, whose members included George Mason, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, feared that a strong national government would overpower the rights of the states and citizens and advocated for a Bill of Rights.

Despite their philosophical differences on many issues, there was one area in which they agreed: the right to trial by jury. It is our birthright; who is in opposition to the genius of America shall dare to attempt its subversion? I hope that we shall never be induced to part with that excellent mode of trial. Although five states had ratified the document, Massachusetts refused to do so until John Adams and John Hancock brokered the Massachusetts Compromise.

The compromise allowed the state delegates to ratify the document with the provision the state would lobby the U. Congress to amend the document should enough states ratify it and it became law. Many other states debating the issue followed the Massachusetts Compromise, and the United States Constitution went into effect on March 4, James Madison, who headed the Virginia delegation, drafted the legislation.

On December 15, , Virginia became the eleventh state to ratify the constitutional amendments, and the Bill of Rights became law. In our Bill of Rights, the 1st Amendment guarantees, among other liberties, freedom of the press—the spark that had ignited the American Revolution with the trial of John Peter Zenger.

The 6th Amendment outlines the rights to a speedy, impartial, jury trial in criminal cases—a right which had ensured that Zenger had a fair trial in front of a jury of his peers. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the 16th century, the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England.