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The story of the jury, from its ancient origins to its role in our Henry created several new legal actions to resolve disputes
justice system today, reflects the historical movement to- over land and inheritances. These actions were known as
ward popular self-governance. It also illustrates the gradual assizes. Twelve “free and lawful men” of the neighborhood
expansion of individual rights to all members of American were assembled to state, under oath, their knowledge of who
society. was the true property owner or heir. These panels of twelve
freemen established the basis from which the modern civil
jury would grow. Unlike a modern jury, however, these pan-
The “Self-Informing” Jury of the Middle Ages els were self-informing. This means that they were expected
to come to court with preexisting knowledge of the facts.
The American jury system has its origins in medieval Eng-
land. The Anglo-Saxon kings who ruled England from the 6th Henry also created new procedures in criminal trials that
to the 11th centuries and the Normans who conquered Eng- are still visible in our modern system. In the Assize of Clar-
land in 1066 used various legal procedures that provided endon, enacted in 1166, Henry introduced what became
possible models for the jury. But the jury owes a special known as the presenting jury, which we know today as the
In French, “grand” means large and “petit” The Jury as Protector of Individual Liberty
means small. Grand juries traditionally have
had more members than “petit,” or trial, juries. Early English juries came to be seen as a protector of the
accused against the very harsh criminal laws of the day. For
hundreds of years, the sentence for most convicted felons
Magna Carta
in England was death. Records of trials that date from the
Middle Ages into the eighteenth century show jurors acquit-
In 1215, England’s King John signed the
ting many accused felons. These records have convinced
Magna Carta. Magna Carta’s article 39
historians that early juries were often reluctant to enforce
provided “No freemen shall be taken or
imprisoned... except by the lawful judgment
of his peers or by the law of the land.” In For hundreds of years, the
hindsight, “right to trial by a jury of his peers” sentence for most convicted felons
was read into the phrase “lawful judgment of
his peers.” The original purpose of Magna
in England was death.
Carta, however, was to reassert the rights of
harsh criminal laws. Juries would convict serious offend-
powerful English noblemen against the king,
ers and sentence them to hang, but they would often acquit
not to grant new liberties to the English people
other offenders or convict them of a lesser crime that carried
at large.
a less severe penalty, such as branding or whipping.
Over the following centuries, the role of the jury shifted. By © The New Yorker Collection 1992 Arnie Levin from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
the fifteenth century, the idea of a “self-informing” jury was
giving way to a jury that heard evidence presented at trial. Although medieval juries were self-informing, juries today base
These jurors were still not required to be “neutral” in the their verdict on evidence presented at trial.
modern sense. They remained free to base their verdict on
their own personal knowledge of the alleged crime as well as