Jury Systems Around the World

Abstract

Lay citizens participate as decision makers in the legal systems of many countries. This review describes the different approaches that countries employ to integrate lay decision makers, contrasting in particular the use of juries composed of all citizens with mixed decision-making bodies of lay and law-trained judges. The review discusses research on the benefits and drawbacks of lay legal decision making as well as international support for the use of ordinary citizens as legal decision makers, with an eye to explaining a recent increase in new jury systems around the world. The review calls for more comparative work on diverse approaches to lay participation, examining how different methods of including lay participation promote or detract from fact finding, legal consciousness, civic engagement, and citizen power.

The Impact of Jury Service on Scottish Jurors’ Health and Well‐Being

“…However, caution should be exercised before these conclusions are extended to juries in the UK. There are numerous differences between US practice and UK legal process (Duff ; Hans ; Kaplan and Martin ). These include: The range of cases eligible for jury trial, which are much broader in the US. The way that juries are selected: ‘peremptory challenge’ enables US counsel to influence jury composition in a way thought sympathetic to their cause. Most US criminal courts demand unanimous, rather than majority, verdicts. The requirement in some cases that juries determine not only guilt, but also the punishment, which can include the death penalty in those states which retain capital punishment. In many states, jurors are not legally constrained from discussing their experiences and reactions subsequent to trial. …”

Juries, Lay Judges, and Trials

“…Simpson and Casey B. Anthony, trials that were decades apart. Similarly, support for Spain's recently introduced jury system dropped precipitously following a jury's acquittal of a defendant who was on trial for killing two police officers (Hans 2008).…”

“…In the United Kingdom, the number is even lower, at 1% of cases. In a surprising contrast, a number of countries outside the United States and the United Kingdom have recently introduced new lay participation systems, often as part of broad efforts to support emerging democratic systems (Hans 2008;Kovalev 2010;Marder 2011).…”

“…Thus, juries were found in legal systems in the United States and in British colonies in Africa, parts of India, Australia, New Zealand, and some Caribbean and South American countries (Hans 2008;Vidmar 2000). Several countries dismantled the institution post independence, particularly where native populations saw jury verdicts as furthering the interests of colonizers or where the right to a jury trial was not extended to indigenous peoples.…”

“…Lay judges serve jointly with professional judges in many European countries, including Germany, Austria, Denmark, France, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Sweden, and in post-Soviet countries including the former Czechoslovakia and in countries of the former Yugoslavia (Hans 2008;Kutnjak Ivkovic´ 2007). Several new systems of lay participation use the mixed court model: for example, Japan's mixed court of lay citizens and professional judges, Saiban-in Seido, and Argentina's mixed court in Co´rdoba (Corey and Hans 2010).…”