Text | Pete Hugh
Editor|Pete Hugh
The jury system of judicial trials in the United States is the mainstream form of judicial trial in the United States today, which is a representative product of the separation of powers and a democratic representative system that divides judicial trial power into two.
In the eyes of ordinary people and judges, its special feature is that it allows the people to directly participate in judicial trials, fully embodies the characteristics of people's sovereignty, and the American people regard it as a symbol of judicial democracy and freedom.
The domestic context in which the jury system arose in the United States
1. The Mayflower Convention created a democratic atmosphere for the birth of the jury system
On November 11, 1620, a group of Pilgrims sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from England in Europe to the United States in North America on a steamer called the Mayflower, and the Pilgrims who arrived in the United States alive were only half the number at the time of departure.
After arriving in this strange country, they did not hurry to disembark, and in the midst of hunger and fatigue, they signed a contract on the Mayflower, the Mayflower Convention, the content of which is actually very simple, mainly saying that this group of Puritans voluntarily formed a popular self-government under the witness of God.
And for better development, a series of laws, regulations, charters and public offices that were considered most beneficial and convenient for the colony would be promulgated, and all people would abide by and obey them.
The birth of this convention meant that the seeds of democracy would be sown in the American colony. Because the Puritans were the most radical of the reformers of their time, they advocated equality before God and opposed formalism.
Even though the United States was founded on July 4, 1776, it cannot be denied that the Mayflower Convention had a huge impact on the United States after that.
The signatories of the May Convention were all Puritans of the time, a group of Christians who left England for the United States not to form a new nation, but to pursue freedom and equality.
This is why the Mayflower Convention is regarded as the first embodiment of the spirit of freedom and equality in the United States, and it also provides the best soil for the spread of democracy.
This convention is a good embodiment of the American spirit of "not free, not dead" hundreds of years ago, as many poets who have praised the spirit of freedom in the United States have described it: "The statue of Lady Liberty has never faded, and the spirit of freedom has never faded in people's hearts." ”
It is precisely for this reason that the jury system of judicial trials in the United States can be generally accepted by the American people, because this system advocates popular sovereignty, democracy and equality. The high-ranking judges are equal to the common people, and the awe-inspiring judicial power is equal to the power of the people.
People are born equal in legal status, whether they come from a famous and prestigious upper class or a salaried class from ordinary families, they can participate in the selection of juries, sit together and jointly exercise the right to determine the facts.
It is also in this democratic atmosphere that the jury system in the United States has found a suitable soil for its own development.
2. The outbreak of the American Enlightenment provided enlightenment value for the birth of the jury system of judicial trials
The second half of the eighteenth century is known as the American Enlightenment, a period during which cultural movements flourished in the United States and had a tremendous impact on the thinking and actions of the American people at that time.
Everything was questioned during that period, even religious beliefs. Many famous philosophers and thinkers emerged during this period.
John Locke, whose idea of natural rights, considered the basis of the American Declaration of Independence, was cited as the basis of the American Declaration of Independence, which held that man was a product of God, in which life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were inalienable, and that it was a violation of human rights when rulers began to punish citizens with excessive force.
Rousseau's "The Social Contract" and Locke's "On Government" both mentioned a similar idea that legitimate government should rule on the basis of the consent of the governed, which provided the basis for the subsequent popular sovereign revolutionary movement in the United States.
Combined with Thomas Jefferson's statement in the Declaration of Independence, "When any form of government becomes destructive, the people can change or abolish it." This was one of the reasons why the Revolutionary War broke out in the United States, and the American people thought they could be the "king" of their own country compared to the British king with a crown.
Therefore, the American Enlightenment was also the ideological basis of the American Revolution, and the British colonial rulers of that period brought the jury system to the United States continent, and what the British colonial rulers did not expect was that the American people made good use of the jury system against colonial rule.
The American people in 1775 did not want to get rid of British colonial rule through revolution, but wanted to defend their rights as British citizens, but these rights were violated by taxes and military oppression, and even the application of the jury system was violated by British colonial rulers.
It can be said that the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in the United States was caused by a combination of factors, but there is no doubt that the jury system had become an extremely important tool for the American people to defend human rights against British colonial rule at that time, so much so that it was written into the US Constitution after the founding of the United States.
The Enlightenment in the United States greatly influenced the development of the jury system, especially the jury system in the United States, in which people constantly began to deny superstition and attack centralization and autocracy.
It is precisely under the trend of rationalism that the judicial trial jury itself can obtain the qualification to become the subject of judging facts through evidence in court, and finally realize the transformation from "divine judgment" to "human judgment".
It also pointed out the direction and paved the way for the subsequent development of the system, and made the system the most effective judicial system for punishing crimes and protecting human rights in the early days of the founding of the United States.
The formation and development of the judicial trial jury system in the United States
1. The succession of the jury system in the United States to the British jury system
The earliest jury system originated in ancient Rome, and even historical records of the existence of the so-called "jury system" during the tribal period.
That is, when someone in a tribe commits a crime, under the auspices of the chief, elects a group of highly respected wise men to exercise the right to judge in an equal manner, which is the prototype of the jury system.
The most classic case in ancient Greece was the "Socrates Trial", in which 500 adults with voting rights were elected in the city-state
The men formed a large jury, tried Socrates, and finally sentenced him to death by 360 votes to 140. This model of free collective adjudication provides an ideological and cultural source for the birth of the jury system.
But in terms of legal tradition, the American jury system originated in medieval England, and the modern jury system is also believed to have originated in medieval England.
Around 1215, the jury trial method already existed in England's judicial system, but the scope of application was relatively small and only applied to civil litigation.
At that time, the jury in criminal proceedings in England was later the "grand jury", that is, the prosecution jury, and there was no jury responsible for the trial. Because a resolution was made at the Lateran Church Council in England in 1215 to prohibit priests from participating in trials, the conviction of criminal defendants was carried out only through oath, fire and water tests, and dueling.
In England around 1215, the specific operation of criminal trials is as follows:
(1) If the defendant is a minor offense, the trial shall be made by joint oath.
(2) If the defendant is guilty of a serious criminal offense, the trial shall be mainly by means of dueling. However, there are also regulations for applicable groups, such as the elderly, the weak, the sick and the disabled;
In addition, there are cases where duels are not applicable, such as cases where the plaintiff sues multiple defendants, where the plaintiff dies in the first round of the duel, so it is clear that the other accused defendants cannot continue the duel, so such cases cannot be applied.
Therefore, English judges are very difficult to try criminal cases, and many difficult cases cannot reach "reasonable" verdicts, until in 1220, English judges finally decided to let the jury who was originally responsible for prosecution also assume trial duties, and jointly decide with the judge whether the defendant is guilty;
At the same time, in order to encourage the defendant to agree to the defense of "accepting the jury verdict", the English court added 24 knights to the original jury and formed a team of 36 to decide whether the defendant was guilty, which is the predecessor of the judicial trial jury.
Therefore, it can be seen that the modern jury system has gradually matured from its establishment to its gradual maturity, from being responsible for prosecution to participating in the trial later, and then splitting off to obtain an independent judge, which took 4 centuries in the UK, and the modern jury system was fully established from the 12th century to the 16th century.
In terms of sources of law, both the United States and the United Kingdom are law of the sea. English common law can be called the parent body of the American legal system. At the same time that early English colonists moved to the United States, the jury system was also implanted in the local judicial system in the United States. And the jury system played an important role in the colonies.
In the early days of colonization, all the resources of the United States at that time were scarce, and "the economic base determined the superstructure", so the United States could not establish its own judicial system in a short period of time, and it could only use the existing legal system of the suzerainty to solve civil, criminal and other disputes in the mainland.
Secondly, during the Revolutionary War, the status of the jury system was greatly enhanced in the local judicial system of the United States, because the American people pursued freedom and equality, and in the face of the continuous oppression of the British colonizers, they discovered the unique role of the jury system.
It could be a bulwark against the royal despot, so they urgently introduced the jury system into the American judicial system and developed it to unprecedented heights.
2. The development of the jury system in the United States judicial trial to the British jury system
After the independence of the United States, the jury system developed rapidly, which the author believes can be summarized as follows.
First, the political system of the United States, established in the struggle against British colonial rule, is a bourgeois revolution with obvious democratic significance. Moreover, influenced by the previous Enlightenment, it is supported by four important political principles, namely natural rights, the social contract of the origin of the state, and people's sovereignty, and people's revolutionary sovereignty.
Behind the jury system is the principle of popular sovereignty, that is, to achieve the purpose of the people directly administering the country. For many citizens, jury trials provide an opportunity to govern and are democratically elected.
This also makes jurors have a closer connection and stronger influence with social and public affairs, which greatly enhances the status of the jury system in the hearts of citizens.
Second, the United States itself is a multi-ethnic integrated country, and the diversity of its race, ethnicity, cultural traditions, etc., directly leads to the fact that the trust between the people is not enough to alleviate the contradictions caused by ideological pluralism, and also leads to the great domestic political pressure in the early days of the founding of the United States, and the people do not have enough trust in the national government.
Therefore, in the process of formulating the US Constitution and the framework of the US political system, the separation of powers and constraints became one of the core principles of all design concepts.
The jury system is a classic product of the separation of powers in the United States, and through the people to share the judicial power of judges, judicial corruption and corruption can be well curbed and judicial fairness and democracy can be guaranteed.
Third, the occurrence of the "Zenger" case, a publisher named Zenger in the United States issued a book, which talked about some sensitive issues, so it was sued by the government, which believed that the facts recorded in Zenger's book were not realistic and that there was a situation of framing the government.
The main task of the jury at that time was to confirm whether the book published by Zenger had framed the government, and the court, in order to protect the interests of the government, induced the jury members to make a verdict unfavorable to Zenger, but in the end, the jury members adhered to their inner justice and made a fair verdict with their simple legal feelings.
The case completely upended the American judicial tradition at the time, and the era when judges had the final say is over. The American public has taken a fresh look at the jury of judicial trials. This cleared internal obstacles to the development of the system.
Therefore, the jury system was fully developed in the early days of the founding of the United States.
bibliography
[1] He Qinhua, A History of the Development of American Law, p. 25.
[2] Yang Jun, "The Main Experiences of the Common Law Judicial System and Its Enlightenment", in Theoretical Discussions, No. 1, 2015.
[3] John Gasteel, Jury and Democracy, Beijing Law Press, 2016.