The Research Of The American Jury System

Jury system refers to an judicial and democratic institution that thenational judiciary department absorbs non-professional judges, ordinary people,along with the professional judges to take part in trials according to the law andthe civilian practice. The jury system, which symbolizes democracy ofjudicature and the extent to which is open, is an important part of judicialsystem. It plays a high role in judicial system and the litigation practice. It's alitigation system that develops from the ancient trial system. In modern societyruled by law, jury system is popular and highly praised in many countries as ademocratic form and a guarantee system that citizens and people take part injudicial actions directly. There are mainly two forms globally, the jury systemin the Anglo-American law family and the system by people assessors inRomano-Germanic family. The jury system aims at offering common peoplechances to attend the case trials, enlarging the democracy of judicature andsupervising the implementation of the law. In the application of jury system, themost successful is the jury in Anglo-American, especially the American jurysystem. The jury system is an important institution in American judicial system,in order to get a proper view of the American jury system's creation anddevelopment and study it systematically, the author expounds the followingaspects mainly in this paper, namely: the overview, the creation of theAmerican jury system, the vicissitude and the reform of the American jurysystem, the operation and characteristic of the American jury system, theanalysis of valuable function of the American jury system and the appraisal andthe analysis of the American jury system.The overview synoptically clarifies several concepts about the jury system,the study about the American jury system is in the ascendant presently overseas,the works about the American jury system abundantly come forth, but at home,there is scarcely any monograph wholly introducing the American jury system,the concept about the American jury system only can be seen in some chapterin the few monograph about the American law or in many articles about thisaspects. In view of this status, to take the American jury system as a study task,to carry through study from the angles of history and law using the Englishmaterials that are collected, we can not only realize the creation, development,the reasons of successful operation of the American jury system, but also canexploit new study field and fill up a bit academic gap.This main text content has divided into five parts:First, the establishment of the American jury system. The primitiveembryonic form of the jury system appears most early in the slavery countriesof the ancient Greece and the ancient Rome, when the 11th century, the jurysystem spreads to England, along with the progress of the society andeconomical development, the forms of the jury system evolve constantly, to the13th century, the jury system has already been in preliminary maturity inEngland, it is divided into grand jury and petty jury. In the British colonialexpansion of the 17th century, the jury system spreads to American along withthe colonizer, and fuses with the American specific cultural tradition and thesocial environment, obtains the American law guarantee.Second, the vicissitude and reform of the American jury system. TheAmerican jury system produces under the special historical condition that theWar of independence gains it's victory and the western bourgeoisie are inascending period. Therefore on the one hand, it conforms to the position thatthe colony people oppose the colonial rule, on the other hand, it also meets theneed that bourgeoisie argue against the feudal despotism. After independence,with the soundness of the regime and the economical development, as one ofthe superstructure, the jury system has also had some changes, it representmainly the tidal wave that confines the jury's authority at the end of the 18thcentury and the beginning of the 19th century. To the 20th century 70's, becauseof the influence of reconsidering cultural ideological trend movement, theAmericans begin to reconsider the jury system. In view of the existentproblems about the jury system, some scholars advocate to reform it in order toestablish the jury system that completely suits the American society.Third, the operation and characteristic of the American jury system.Speaking of the operation, mainly includes the applicable scope of theAmerican jury system, the selection of the jurors, the judge's instruction to thejurors and the jury's discussion and verdict. In the process of the jury'soperation, the function that the populace participate in the judicature and thejury keep the authority in balance all manifest concretely. According to theanalysis of the process of the jury's concrete operation, summarize thecharacteristics of the operation of the American jury system, namely: theequity,democracy and randomicity of the way of the selecting jurors andprocedure;the function of detracting powers;the universality and flexibilitythat cases adapt to fields.Fourth, the function of the American jury system. The function of theAmerican jury mainly has political function, the judicial function and the socialfunction. Speaking of the political function, the jury is the democratic politicalshield, is the relief valve of keeping authority in balance, is in favor ofmaintaining the judicature independence and equity;speaking of the judicialfunction, the jury can melt the dissension and recognize the fact of case,attenuate the authority of the judge and strengthen the authority of the litigant,block the road of judicial corruption, make for the justice of the trial result,have the function of making law that accelerates legislation, make for theflexible exertion of the law;speaking of the social function, the jury system hasspecial educational function and it's helpful to the popularization of the law.Fifth, the appraisal and analysis of the American jury system. In the publicconsciousness, the modern American jury has two kinds of clearly oppositeimages. On the one hand, the jury is respected as a flag in the USA, it'scontribution to the democracy can be compared with the vote;on the otherhand, the jury is also snapped as the delegate of despotism and inequity, theinfluence it produces is regarded as the evidence of demoralization.Nevertheless, we should evaluate the American jury system dialectically, weshouldn't ignore it's value. The American jury system has great consequence tothe American legal system, especially have profound influence to the Americanlegal procedure and the evidence law. Therefore, we should realize that thevalue of the American jury system predominates, and objectively analyses thepresent and the past of the American jury system and makes the reasonableforecast to the future.