The American Jury System:Is it really needed?

And if the challenge for cause is successfully resisted , the attorney can simply use one of his allotted peremptory challenges . Simply put attorneys often select jurors for incompetence . In both instances work related exemptions and the loss of such individuals is peculiarly inconsonant with the often sophisticated requirements of jury functioning

Given this state of affairs , another criticism of the jury follows : The ideal of jury representativeness jurors are supposed to represent a cross-section of the community is honored only in the breach . It is more myth than reality . Therefore , the

average jury is arguably not only less competent than the average judge , but also less competent than a random sample of twelve citizens from the community

Juries substantially prolong trial delay . Courts found nonjury trials to be very short . Over 80 percent were completed in one day , and over 93 percent in two days . Hans Zeisel , coauthor of the seminal work on jury research , The American Jury , estimates that bench trials (judge sitting without a jury ) would be 40 percent faster than jury trials . The posturing and polemics attorneys employ solely for the benefit of prospective jurors during jury selection consumes much if not most of the time of the jury trial . Use of lay juries in civil cases outside of the United States is extremely rare nowhere are they used as extensively

Much of the blame for the length and expense of adversarial trials can be assigned to attorney abuse of the discovery process . Few limits exist as to the number of discovery requests a party can make , as long as the requests are at least tenuously related to the action

Tell why the jury is fundamental to the American scheme of justice

The first jury system evolved since Athens by which individuals could seek resolution of their...