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Athens valued justice and they had many different reforms as different challenges arose. The Athenian law court was large and decisions were made by majority. This is what gave the courts such a specific and personal feel, since a large group of people were allowed to exercise democratic voting rights. [ 2 ]
Heliaia or Heliaea (Ancient Greek: Ἡλιαία; Doric: Ἁλία Halia) was the supreme court of ancient Athens.The view generally held among scholars is that the court drew its name from the ancient Greek verb ἡλιάζεσθαι (héliázesthai), which means congregate.
For private suits, the minimum jury size was 200 (increased to 401 if a sum of over 1,000 drachmas was at issue), for public suits 501. Under Cleisthenes's reforms, juries were selected by lot from a panel of 600 jurors, there being 600 jurors from each of the ten tribes of Athens, making a jury pool of 6,000 in total. [52]
In Athenian courts, the jury tended to be made of the common people, whereas litigants were mostly from the elites of society. [20] In the Athenian legal system, the courts have been seen as a system for settling disputes and resolving arguments, rather than enforcing a coherent system of rules, rights and obligations. [21]
In governance, sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e. by lottery, in order to obtain a representative sample. [1] [2] [3] [4]In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy.
Although neither Plato nor Xenophon of Athens identifies the number of jurors, a jury of 501 men likely was the legal norm. In the Apology of Socrates (36a–b), about Socrates's defence at trial, Plato said that if just 30 of the votes had been otherwise, then Socrates would have been acquitted (36a), and that (perhaps) less than three-fifths ...
That said, most all states provide for a jury trial in civil cases in their state constitution. The first clause of the Seventh Amendment preserves the right of a jury trial in most all federal cases.
A kleroterion in the Ancient Agora Museum (Athens) A large kleroterion at the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology in Reading, Berkshire A kleroterion (Ancient Greek: κληρωτήριον, romanized: klērōtērion) was a randomization device used by the Athenian polis during the period of democracy to select citizens to the boule, to most state offices, to the nomothetai, and to court juries.