Right to Trial by Jury

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

[A]s says Sir Edward Coke in his exposition of Magna Carta ... page 46, branches 1, 2 and 5, in these words:

... No man shall be disseised, that is, put out of seisin, or dispossessed of his freehold (that is, lands or livelihood) or of his liberties or free customs (that is, of such franchises and freedoms, and free customs, as belong to him by his free birthright) unless it be by the lawful judgement, that is verdict of his equals (that is of men of his own condition) or by the law of the land (that is, to speak it once for all) by the due course and processes of law. ...

Other due-process protections were included in the Sixth Amendment. For example, the amendment guarantees the right of trial by jury, which protects the right of the accused to be judged by ordinary people in the community rather than by the judge presiding over the case. ... government witnesses against the accused have to be brought into court to face the accused and subject themselves to cross-examination by the accused or his lawyer. The accused also has the right to use the subpoena power of the court (i.e., "compulsory process") to force favorable witnesses to come to court to provide evidence on his behalf.

The idea behind the right to a speedy trial is to ensure that a federal prosecutorial hammer is not held over someone's head for an indefinite period of time and to prevent indefinite detentions of people accused of crimes ... The idea of a public trial is to ensure that government prosecutorial actions are exposed to public view, so as to discourage abuses of prosecutorial power ... Finally, we should note that pursuant to the express language of the Sixth Amendment, all these procedural rights belong not only to Americans but also foreigners whom U.S. authorities charge with a crime.

Why were our ancestors so insistent on enumerating trial by jury among the constitutional guarantees in the federal criminal-justice process? Why weren't they satisfied with judges' deciding the guilt or innocence of an accused, as is done in most other countries? ... [A] jury composed of ordinary people from all walks of life is more likely to ask a deeper and much more profound question when faced with whether to permit the government to punish a defendant: Is the crime which he is accused of committing just, and, if not, should the jury acquit him even though it is clear he committed the crime?

The Sixth Amendment reads in pertinent part:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.

What this provision means is that when the federal government charges a person with a crime, he has the right to employ the power of the government to bring witnesses to trial who will testify in his behalf. ... The accused asks the court clerk to issue what is called a "subpoena" ... ordering a person to appear in court ... The defendant then has the right to call the witness to the witness stand and ask the witness the relevant questions.

Balko reports that his first appeals attorney, a public defender, was fired ... This doesn't inspire confidence in the justice system ... Instead, it suggests that a man who was defending himself against a late-night intrusion into his home was railroaded. Yes, he had a jury trial. But when the American people are bombarded with drug-war propaganda all their lives and when the police in a small southern town testify about the fatal shooting by a black man of one of their own (a white cop), objectivity and cool-headedness are not to be expected. Maye had little chance of being exonerated.

1. What method of resolving disputes did trial by jury replace? ... Trial by battle. Apparently the custom had been to settle many disputes by fighting. King Henry II (1154-1189) introduced a number of legal reforms which, among other things, gave people the option of having a group of peers resolve a dispute. Historian F.W. Maitland: "The person sued might refuse trial by battle and have the question 'Who has the best right to this land?' submitted to a body of his neighbors sworn to tell the truth."

When [Charles I] resorted to forced loans, seventy-six men refused to comply. They were denied the right to a trial and imprisoned ... Coke presented a bill that specified no one could be imprisoned more than three months without being brought to trial. The House of Commons approved resolutions saying that nobody should be imprisoned unless the government specified the charges ... "We reach here," wrote Churchill, "... the main foundation of English freedom ... Trial by jury of equals, only for offenses known to the law, if maintained, makes the difference between bond and free."

[W]orking out the radical implications ... of English law, Spooner published in 1852 his Trial By Jury. Reviewing the history of the jury system, he concluded that all statute law claiming to improve upon or overthrow the common law was ipso facto invalid. Further: "If the real trial by jury had been preserved in the courts of the United States–that is, if we had had legal juries, and the jurors had known their rights, –it is hardly probable that one-tenth of the past legislation of Congress would have ever been enacted, or at least, that, if enacted, it could never have been enforced."

The right of people to defend themselves against the usurpation of government was the central theme of Spooner's ... An Essay on the Trial by Jury (1852) ... Benjamin Tucker stated [its] gist ...: "No man should be punished for an offence unless by the unanimous verdict and sentence of twelve men chosen by lot from the whole body of citizens to judge not only the facts but the law, the justice of the law, and the extent of the penalty"; and "The gradual encroachment of judges upon the rights of juries" renders "the latter practically worthless in the machinery of justice."

The [Supreme] Court's language was clear and unequivocal: "Hamdi ... has been appointed counsel, with whom ... he is now being granted unmonitored meetings. He unquestionably has the right to access to counsel in connection with the proceedings on remand ..." Why did the Framers consider assistance of counsel sufficiently important to include it in the Bill of Rights? The Supreme Court explained in the 1938 case of Johnson v. Zerbst, "[The assistance of counsel] is one of the safeguards of the Sixth Amendment deemed necessary to insure fundamental human rights of life and liberty ..."

By the act for the suppression of riots and tumults in the town of Boston, ... a murder committed there is, if the governor pleases, to be tried in the court of King's Bench, in the island of Great Britain, by a jury of Middlesex ... And the wretched criminal, if he happen to have offended on the American side, stripped of his privilege of trial by peers of his vicinage, removed from the place where alone full evidence could be obtained, without money, without counsel, without friends, without exculpatory proof, is tried before judges predetermined to condemn.