What is a jury

• A jury is composed of local community members who have no personal interest or usually no knowledge about the particular case.
• A jury’s role in a criminal trial is to determine whether the prosecutor proved each element of the charged crime beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence presented.
• In a civil case, the Plaintiff is often required to prove their case by a preponderance of the evidence.
• The judge provides ‘jury instructions’ that explain the law. These can include the community’s standards of reasonableness as they apply to the specific case. The jury is often asked to determine what a person of reasonable prudence and caution would have done in the relevant circumstances.
• If the jury reaches a guilty verdict in a criminal case, the responsibility for determining the sentence generally lies with the judge, who applies the community’s guidelines for punishment in delivering the sentence.

Why is a Jury important

• A jury brings community judgment into the legal process, ensuring that verdicts reflect shared community values rather than solely the views of legal elites.
• It also acts as a safeguard against potential judicial overreach by allowing ordinary citizens to check the power of the prosecuting entity in criminal prosecutions.

Jury nullification

• Jury nullification allows a jury to nullify the law as applied to a unique set of factual circumstances. This mechanism allows a jury to acquit a person who violates an otherwise valid law that the jury finds inappropriate as applied to the unique factual circumstances.
  • Example: Imagine an evil villain has forcefully strapped an innocent person to a powerful bomb placed amid a crowded market and rigged it to explode automatically in mere seconds. Further, imagine the only way to deactivate the bomb is to immediately shoot it with a gun while also, unfortunately, shooting and killing the innocent person located between the shooter and the bomb. The shooter who intentionally kills the innocent person solely to prevent the bomb from exploding violates the Legal Principle, notwithstanding the shooter’s good overall intentions. Although the shooter saved countless lives, the shooter intended to, and knowingly did, initiate nonconsensual physical force against and thereby kill an innocent person who was aggressing against nobody. Despite saving numerous innocent lives, there is no question the shooter violated the Legal Principle by committing a murder.
    • The local community’s prosecutor may choose to charge the shooter with a less severe crime than murder. If the prosecutor makes a bad decision, the local community could select a different prosecutor in the next election.
    • It is also possible for a jury to override the judge/prosecutor’s verdict and acquit the shooter as not guilty based on the unique factual circumstances.
    • A local community may even decide to apply jury nullification to civil cases. In this case, the shooter may also not be liable to monetary damages to the innocent victim’s family, as well as not being deemed a criminal.
    • A local community may opt to require the jury to uphold the law in all circumstances (which might make sense when the law is aligned with the Legal Principle) but instead allow the jury discretion to remove certain punishments like incarceration, whilst still rendering a guilty verdict.

Ways that a 3L community could appoint a jury

• A jury is typically comprised of a random selection of local residents who are not paid - a local community may adopt this system where residents opt in to the potential of being called for jury service as a pre-requisite for being afforded a jury if they themselves are called to court.
• Another option is for the local community to retain professional (paid or voluntary) jury members, who have a deeper understanding of the Legal Principle and the Due Process afforded to all who are accused of violating the Legal Principle.  This could make the justice system more effective and efficient while eliminating the risk of residents being called for jury service at an inconvenient time.
• Choosing not to incorporate a jury into the local justice system is not inherently a breach of the Legal Principle’s mandate that all people are afforded due process, but a right to a jury of one's peers may be the best way to guarantee that due process while maintaining a check on the power of legal elites.