Law Commons^™

Ears Of The Deaf: The Theory And Reality Of Lay Judges In Mixed Tribunals, Sanja Kutnjak Ivković

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This paper explores mixed tribunals, a unique form of lay participation in which lay and professional judges make legal decisions jointly. A short overview of different types and sizes of mixed tribunals around the world will be discussed first. Then, the paper will elaborate on the theoretical arguments that hypothesize about the nature and extent of interaction in mixed tribunals. These theoretical arguments, developed using the status characteristics theory, will be assessed using the evidence obtained in empirical studies of mixed tribunals. In addition, the paper will discuss other potential challenges faced by mixed tribunals. In the end, the paper …

The American Jury System: A Synthetic Overview, Richard Lempert

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This essay is intended to provide in brief compass a review of much that is known about the American jury system, including the jury’s historical origins, its political role, controversies over its role and structure, its performance, both absolutely and in comparison to judges and mixed tribunals, and proposals for improving the jury system. The essay is informed throughout by 50 years of research on the jury system, beginning with the 1965 publication of Kalven and Zeisel’s seminal book, The American Jury. The political importance of the jury is seen to lie more in the jury’s status as a one …

Four Models Of Jury Democracy, Jeffrey Abramson

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article proposes a theory of “representative deliberation” to describe the democratic ideal that jurors seek to practice. Given its long history, the jury does not fit neatly into any one of the most familiar types of democracy, such as direct democracy, representative democracy, or deliberative democracy. However, the jury does hold together elements of all of these theories. In line with direct democracy, we select jurors from the people-at-large. In line with representative democracy, we seek to draw jurors from a representative cross-section of the community. In line with deliberative democracy, jurors talk as well as vote and seek …

Some Limitations Of Experimental Psychologists' Criticisms Of The American Trial, Robert P. Burns

Chicago-Kent Law Review

For decades, psychologists have conducted experiments that have suggested severe limitations on human cognitive capacities. Many have suggested that these results have important, and largely negative, consequences for an assessment of the reliability of the American trial. They have pointed persuasively at the disturbing number of exonerations of those convicted after trial. And some have gone on to make specific proposals for the incremental, and sometimes radical, changes in the conduct of the adversary trial. This essay places these studies, as forcefully presented by Professor Dan Simon, in a normative context, and argues that they are more powerful in suggesting …

Juror Bias, Voir Dire, And The Judge-Jury Relationship, Nancy S. Marder

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In the United States, voir dire is viewed as essential to selecting an impartial jury. Judges, lawyers, and the public fervently believe that a fair trial depends on distinguishing between prospective jurors who are impartial and those who are not. However, in England, Australia, and Canada, there are impartial jury trials without voir dire. This article challenges the assumption that prospective jurors enter the courtroom as either impartial or partial and that voir dire will reveal the impartial ones. Though voir dire fails as an “impartiality detector,” this article explores how voir dire contributes to the trial process in two …

Preventing Juror Misconduct In A Digital World, Thaddeus Hoffmeister

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article examines the reform efforts employed by common law countries to address internet-related juror misconduct, which generally arises when jurors use technology to improperly research or discuss a case. The three specific areas of reform are (1) punishment, (2) oversight, and (3) education. The first measure can take various forms ranging from fines to public embarrassment to incarceration. The common theme with all punishments is that once imposed, they make citizens less inclined to want to serve as jurors. Therefore, penalties should be a last resort in preventing juror misconduct.

The second reform measure is oversight, which occurs in …