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A citizen's right to a trial by jury is a central feature of the United States Constitution. [1] It is considered a fundamental principle of the American legal system. Laws and regulations governing jury selection and conviction/acquittal requirements vary from state to state (and are not available in courts of American Samoa), but the fundamental right itself is mentioned five times in the ...
Lester B. Orfield, A Resume of Decisions of the United States Supreme Court on Federal Criminal Procedure, 30 Ky. L.J. 360 (1942). Lester B. Orfield, A Resume of Decisions of the United States Supreme Court on Federal Criminal Procedure, 7 Mo. L. Rev. 263 (1942).
Also, in the United States, except for serious offenses (such as murder), minors are usually tried in a juvenile court, which lessens the sentence allowed, but forfeits the right to a jury. Originally, the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial indicated a right to "a trial by jury as understood and applied at common ...
In the 1794 case Georgia v.Brailsford, the Supreme Court directly tried a common law case before a jury.The facts in the case were not in dispute, and the legal opinion of the court was unanimous, but the Court was nonetheless obligated under the Seventh Amendment to refer the matter to the jury for a general verdict.
The Supreme Court has held that the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial also guarantees a jury of sufficient size. The Court found a six-member jury sufficient to meet the amendment's requirements in Colgrove v. Battin (1973). [16]
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) banned peremptory challenges based solely on race, although the U.S. Supreme Court has since acted to mitigate its impact. [9] The issue of racial bias in jury selection has been complicated by the question of whose rights are implicated; the potential juror's, or the defendant's. [10]
The Supreme Court ruled 7–2 in favor of Duncan by arguing that the right to a jury trial in criminal cases was fundamental and central to the American conception of justice. As such the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to honor requests for jury trials.
Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision with regard to aggravating factors in crimes. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibited judges from enhancing criminal sentences beyond statutory maxima based on facts other than those decided by the ...