Blackwell Reference Online

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The citizen's jury has a long and distinguished history as a way of administering justice in Western civilizations (see Hastie, Penrod, & Pennington, 1983 ; Kalvin & Zeisel, 1966 ). Stemming from early British common law, the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers has been present in many cultures throughout history, and serves as a cornerstone of the U.S. legal system to this day. However, many of the laws and procedures governing how juries are used, chosen, instructed, and so forth, have been formalized through reliance on tradition and intuition. In more recent times, many of these procedures have been questioned, for reasons of both fairness and practicality. Thus, numerous controversies have arisen about how, when, and in some cases whether, juries should be used. In the United States, many of these controversies have been addressed by appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court (e.g., Ballew v. Georgia , 1978 ; Lockhart v. Mcree , 1986 ; Williams v. Florida , 1972; Witherspoon v. Illinois , 1968 ). Unfortunately, in many cases, empirical evidence addressing these questions was either sparse or non-existent. Partly in response to the controversies mentioned above, the study of juries (or more typically and unfortunately, jurors) has been a common practice in social psychology, particularly in the United States. Juries provide a natural context for many of the ... log in or subscribe to read full text