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A bench trial is a trial by judge, as opposed to a jury. [1] The term applies most appropriately to any administrative hearing in relation to a summary offense to distinguish the type of trial. Many legal systems ( Roman , Islamic ) use bench trials for most or all cases or for certain types of cases.
Bench used in a legal context can have several meanings. First, it can simply indicate the location in a courtroom where a judge sits. Second, the term bench is a metonym used to describe members of the judiciary collectively, [ 1 ] or the judges of a particular court, such as the King's Bench or the Common Bench in England and Wales, or the ...
At the close of discovery, the parties may either pick a jury and then have a trial by jury or the case may proceed as a bench trial. A bench trial is only heard by the judge if the parties waive a jury trial or if the right to a jury trial is not guaranteed for their particular claim (such as those under equity in the U.S.) or for any lawsuits ...
The factfinder differs by the type of proceeding. In a jury trial, it is the jury; in a non-jury trial, the judge is both the factfinder and the trier of law. In administrative proceedings, the factfinder may be a hearing officer or a hearing body. [3]
If the earlier trial is a fraud, double jeopardy will not prohibit a new trial because the party acquitted has prevented themselves from being placed into jeopardy to begin with. One such case is the trial of Harry Aleman, who was tried and acquitted in 1977 in Cook County, Illinois for the September 1972 death of William Logan. Nearly 20 years ...
In a bench trial, the judge's decision near the end of the trial is simply referred to as a finding. [2] In England and Wales, a coroner's findings used to be called verdicts but are, since 2009, called conclusions (see Coroner § Inquest conclusions (previously called verdicts)). A verdict about murder.
A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial, in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions. Jury trials are increasingly used in a significant share of serious criminal cases in many common law judicial systems
After this date, trials after an indictment by the grand jury were conducted by juries as well. The large changes wrought in the English system of justice did not go unchallenged. The dispute of jurisdiction over the one-sixth of the population of England who were clergy was the chief grievance between the king and Becket.