American Judical Exceptionalism - Like Miles in a Metric World?

Catchy lede huh?

Earlier this year I got selected for jury duty.

Unlike a lot of people I was psyched to get chosen and hear a case.

After a couple delays that pushed back jury selection I got down to the district court there were forms to fill out and orientations to listen to.

Eventually we made it into the courtroom and heard mini-openings from the prosecution and defense.

Murder case! Cool this is gonna be interesting.

Well, not really. Seems there was a drunken brawl and somebody got stabbed and died. The first person who was accused and acquitted was now accusing somebody else. Oh. And there was no physical evidence to tie the new accused to the crime. He was there, but so were 20 other drunk guys at 2:00 a.m.

So, eyewitness testimony from a drunken acquitted witness. oh-kay. This was gonna be a hard sell for the prosecutor.

So jury selection began and people got into the jury box and answered questions. Some were peremptorily challenged by either side. Of course people also tried to get out of service for a variety of reasons. Care of children or elderly relatives, small business owners, relatives of police, people who had friends or family murdered (there was one...shudder).

I got called up and like a good American I tried to shirk my duty. We had just made plans for Spring Break days before the summons, including plane tickets and reservations. This proved good enough to get me a deferment. Just a deferment till the next round....and I honestly do want to be on a jury (though I'm glad I didn't waste my time on that one - he got acquitted too of course) but when they asked "Any reason that you can't serve?" I said "Well, was planning a trip..."

But the take away message for me form the whole thing was something that the judge kept repeating to prospective jurors over and over.

He would tell us all about our civic duty and how citizens in a democracy should step up. About how the judicial system in the US is a model for other nations and how a trial by jury is a cornerstone of that system.

Then he said (not verbatim): "You know, not many countries around the world use the jury trial. It's part of our common law heritage from English law. If this were a trial in most other places in the world, the accused wouldn't have the opportunity to have a jury trial - he'd be judged by a panel of judges...."

This made me think.

So like the English/Imperial system of measurement (which all right thinking people loathe), the American use of jury trials puts us in the minority of world judicial systems.



(NOTE: Don't go by size of course....number of countries is the key here)

Here's a map to simplify things. Blue are civil law (ie. trial by judges), salmon are common law areas (jury trials). Interestingly India abolished jury trials since they are too easily swayed by the media.

So actually, our judicial system is NOT a beacon to other countries. If anything, countries are moving the opposite way....And when you look at rock stupid jury verdicts like Rodney King and O.J.'s, it makes you thing that we actually might have something to learn from the rest of the world here.