Trial by Jury : The Seventh Amendment and Anglo-American Special Juries / James Oldham.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oldham, James, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Constitution--7th Amendment.

United States.

Constitutional law--United States.

Constitutional law.

Jury--England--History.

Jury.

Jury--United States--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (365 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : New York University Press, [2006]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

While the right to be judged by one's peers in a court of law appears to be a hallmark of American law, protected in civil cases by the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution, the civil jury is actually an import from England. Legal historian James Oldham assembles a mix of his signature essays and new work on the history of jury trial, tracing how trial by jury was transplanted to America and preserved in the Constitution. Trial by Jury begins with a rigorous examination of English civil jury practices in the late eighteenth century, including how judges determined one's right to trial by jury and who composed the jury. Oldham then considers the extensive historical use of a variety of “special juries,” such as juries of merchants for commercial cases and juries of women for claims of pregnancy. Special juries were used for centuries in both English and American law, although they are now considered antithetical to the idea that American juries should be drawn from jury pools that reflect reasonable cross-sections of their communities. An introductory overview addresses the relevance of Anglo-American legal tradition and history in understanding America's modern jury system.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. The Scope of the Seventh Amendment Guarantee

2. The “Complexity Exception”

3. Law versus Fact

4. Determining Damages

5. The Jury of Matrons

6. The Self-Informing Jury

7. The English Origins of the Special Jury

8. Special Juries in England

9. Special Juries in the United States and Modern Jury Formation Procedures

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

Notes

Table of Statutes

Table of Cases

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-312) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jul 2020)

ISBN:

0-8147-6259-X

OCLC:

779828467