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Whence Cometh the Jury?In the United States today, we take the jury for granted as a means of learning the truth or finding the facts in a disputed matter. As an institution, the jury has a long and colorful history.In the middle ages, disputes were resolved or the truth ascertained often by ordeal by fire or water. Ordeal by fire involved requiring a defendant to grab a piece of red hot iron with his cloth-covered hands. If his wounds healed in three days, he was deemed to have told the truth; if not, he was branded a liar. By 1215, the Church determined to end the trial by ordeal and a new method chosen was to summon twelve people from the place where a crime occurred and to let them decide what happened. Often put under oath, they bore the Latin term juratores, or "those who are sworn," which in French is juré; that became the term "jury" in English. In the beginning, these juries did not receive any instructions on the law. They were expected to determine the truth, the facts, and the outcome based on the composite of their own general experiences. Early in United States history, the same system was used. Thomas Jefferson, for example, had great confidence in the common man and believed it was right for jurors to decide cases based on their own sense of justice. As life became more complex in an industrialized society, people became bothered by the notion that one jury could decide a case one way and another could decide it differently at a different place. The next step in the development of the jury system was understandably experimentation with a system of telling jurors what the law was. From this developed the practice used throughout the 20th Century of instructing the jury to take its understanding of the law from the court, leaving to the jury the final responsibility for finding the facts and applying the law to the facts. As jury instructions became more common, and especially after they became part of the court record, differences or errors in instructions on the law became a common source for appeals to higher courts. The answer to varied statements or instructions on what the law was resulted in a creation of standardized instructions. These have the advantage of saving time and avoiding duplication as well as argument and disagreement as to what the appropriate law was. Such standardized instructions were ordinarily prepared by committees of judges and experienced lawyers. An important purpose in standardizing instructions was to improve juror comprehension. Because a jury of one's "peers" can include people with varied educational backgrounds, the use of simplified language has become a current goal in crafting standardized jury instructions. This movement has even acquired a name of its own, the use of "Plain English." The goal was to maintain a tenth grade level of language usage. The importance of simplified communication is particularly clear where any substantial number of jurors do not have English as their first language. Today, both the federal courts and virtually every system of state courts maintain their own "standardized jury instructions" both for civil and criminal trials. Some of the wisdom accumulated by the drafters of standardized jury instructions would include the following: 1. Plain language is not just baby talk or street talk or slang; it is about writing clearly and effectively. 2. It employs short sentences and simpler words. 3. In short, it involves planning the document, organizing its contents, constructing understandable sentences, and choosing understandable words. Although there is much more to be said about the performance of juries in 2005, clearly, seeking truth and verifying facts through a jury of one's peers produces greater truth and a better brand of justice than the ancient "ordeal by fire or water." |
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