The Complete Idiot's Guide to the U.S. Constitution by Timothy Harper

Author:Timothy Harper [Harper, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DK Publishing
Published: 2007-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

The Impartial Jury Clause

This clause shores up the Constitution’s Article III guarantees for jury trials, and can be traced back to the Magna Carta, when the noblemen wanted to make sure that, if King John’s government charged them with crimes, they would be tried before a jury of their peers—other noblemen, presumably, who might be sympathetic.

The framers of the Constitution viewed the impartial jury as a way to protect citizens against overly aggressive prosecutors or incompetent judges. The participation of ordinary citizens brought checks and balances to the everyday working of the judicial system and kept prosecutors and judges from having too much authority.

Historically in English common law, jurors were chosen for their wisdom and good judgment, and often because they knew a lot about the case at hand. Who better to understand what the case was about and render a fair decision than someone who knew the defendant, the prosecutor, and the particulars of the alleged crime?

In contrast, today’s juries often seem to be selected for their lack of knowledge about the case. The less they know, in theory, the more able they are to make an impartial judgment. Ironically, some lawyers who want jurors who know nothing about a case then complain after they lose that the jurors were too dim to understand their erudite arguments.

In terms of what a jury is supposed to do under the Sixth Amendment, it’s important to note that the jury is not expected to know anything about the law. In a jury trial, the judge administers the law and the jury determines the facts. That’s why a jury, for example, is not asked to determine whether a confession is admissible and why, if a confession is ruled inadmissible, a jury is not even told about it.

A jury’s decisions about the facts of a case—who, what, when, where, why, and how—are not carved in stone, but almost. When a conviction is appealed, the appeals court typically looks only at whether the law was carried about properly and fairly. Appeals courts do not ordinarily consider whether the jury decided the facts properly. Let’s say you are accused of stealing your neighbor’s garden gnome. You claim it’s a case of mistaken identity—another neighbor, not you, stole the garden gnome—but the jury finds you guilty. You appeal your conviction. The appeals court cannot even consider whether it really was a case of mistaken identity, but the court can overturn the conviction if authorities did not follow proper procedures for the lineup that identified you as the gnome-napper.

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