Jurors are randomly selected by computer from a "reserve army" of qualified personnel, just like lottery tickets. Being a juror is different from an election: the election is voluntary, and it's up to you whether to vote or not. But being a juror is necessary. Once drawn, don't run unless there are special circumstances (proof is needed). You can't "muddle through", otherwise it will be considered illegal, and offenders will range from fines to prosecution.
The probability of being drawn as a grand jury is lower than that of a trial jury. The grand jury needs four weeks.
The grand jury is committed to trying criminal cases. All criminal cases must be tried by a grand jury before they enter the trial. When someone accuses someone of a criminal offence, the prosecutor thinks that a case can be filed, that is, all kinds of evidence can be collected. However, the prosecutor cannot decide whether the evidence in the case is enough to enter the trial, and this decision must be made by the grand jury. The grand jury consists of 23 people, including the pro and con "heads" and two volunteer secretaries. At least 16 people must be present at the hearing, and 12 people must vote after the hearing. If passed, this person will be formally charged, but this does not mean that he/she is guilty. If the case goes to trial, another jury-a trial jury composed of 12 people-will decide whether the defendant is guilty after listening to the arguments of lawyers from both sides. In other words, a criminal suspect has to go through a hearing of two juries and 35 people before he can be convicted. Civil cases do not have to go through the procedure of the grand jury.
It is generally believed that Britain is the home country of modern jury system. However, from the middle of19th century, Britain gradually abolished the jury in civil litigation. By 1993, according to the new law, the application of civil jury only involved cases of citizens' reputation. In addition, in order to meet the needs of controlling crime and improving judicial efficiency, the modern police system and procuratorial system in Britain have been developed one after another. Finally, in 1933, Britain basically abolished the prosecution jury, that is, the grand jury (officially abolished in 1948) and replaced it with the prosecutor system. And in 1948, the law allows the trial of misdemeanors through summary procedures without the participation of juries, which greatly narrows the scope of application of trial juries. According to a statistic in the mid-1980s, only 5% of cases in England and Wales are tried by juries, including 4% in criminal cases and 1% in civil cases. [1] It seems that the jury system has indeed declined in Britain. Moreover, since the late19th century, the jury system has actually declined in the world. However, it is also a historical fact that the jury system has flourished for a long time in British history (even once in the world); Even though the jury system has declined in Britain, it is still regarded as a traditional feature of common law, which makes the judicial procedure in Britain and America different from that in civil law countries, and thus develops the unique evidence rules in Britain and America. As for the civil law system, although it tried to introduce the British jury system at the beginning of 19 century, it soon "transformed" into the jury system or other styles; Some even can't work normally at all, so that they have to reluctantly abandon them. It can be seen that the jury system has unique adaptability to Britain and the United States, and the unique system functions and characteristics brought about by it. Because the jury system has such symbolic significance to the Anglo-American legal system, and its historical fate is quite different from the past, the author has been deeply curious about such a question: "How did the jury system, as a major feature of Anglo-American law, come into being in British history?" Although many domestic scholars have made a general discussion on the ins and outs of the jury system, so far, no scholars have clearly studied and described how the jury system was formed in British history. The author thinks it is very necessary to study such a problem, which may tell us why the jury system has a completely different fate in the two legal systems and why it once flourished and declined in the past. The French philosopher Dejin Ri said, "The past shows us how to build the future." [2] History is always awesome to us, so it is worth exploring and reflecting.
Is the original intention of writing this article.
The Origin of British Jury —— Group Witness
It was well known at that time that the modern jury system was formed in Britain and spread to all parts of the world from Britain. In this sense, we can say that Britain is the home country of modern jury system. However, the author believes that this historical judgment never implies that the jury system in Britain originated from its native land. Of course, many scholars always talk about the origin of jury system from the people's jury courts in ancient Greece, Athens and Rome. The author also has doubts about such methods, because they soon disappeared from history and have no historical connection with the jury system in today's countries [3]. Therefore, we should start directly from the British jury and look for its origin and inheritance.
The origin of the British jury system seems vague, and researchers have different opinions. Some people think this is a similar practice in the Anglo-Saxon period, while others think it was introduced by the Normans. In fact, we can find such a provision in the law of Anglo-Saxon King Ethel Reid: "At every meeting in Wapentak, twelve elderly squires and the mayor (Reeve) must swear by sacred objects together, not to sue the innocent and not to hide the criminals." [4] This is indeed very similar to the later prosecution jury. In addition, at the beginning of the tenth century, the church court in the Frankish kingdom occasionally referred the question of a person's guilt or innocence to a mass organization composed of 12 people, and the British church also borrowed this practice from the Frankish church during Dunstan and Oswald. [5] Nevertheless, because they are not fixed and have the nature of accidental practice, most researchers (including authoritative scholars) still tend to think that the jury in a strict sense was introduced by William I from the Frankish Normandy after the Norman Conquest, and the above-mentioned similar practices are at best some favorable conditions for the introduction of the jury system. [6]
According to records, at least from the 8th century AD, the Frankish emperors and kings called their neighbors to investigate juries (inquests or inquiries) and asked them to answer a question raised by a visiting royal official-mainly about the royal rights recognized by local customs and the violation of royal orders. Historical data show that this kind of neighbor investigation jury was mainly used to restore the rights of royal land at that time. Because the royal land at that time was often occupied by private individuals, the king ordered royal officials to go to various places to explore the facts in order to restore the rights of royal land. In order to obtain evidence and facts effectively, the royal family adopted the neighbor investigation team as a way of questioning. Later, the king extended this way of asking questions (neighbor investigation group) to the investigation of citizenship tax and so on. [7] King Frank's way of asking questions from the neighbor investigation group was originally the privilege of the king, and the king effectively maintained and extended the rights of the royal family by virtue of this way of asking questions. [8] Local feudal authorities (such as feudal lords) [9] shall not be used. Therefore, this kind of investigation jury was actually a means used by the king to safeguard the royal power when facing many feudal separatist forces at that time. At the same time, it is obvious that this kind of neighbor investigation jury is only a witness who provides evidence, not a jury in the modern sense. [ 10]
Later, the Normans in the north inherited this method from the Franks and used their neighbors to investigate the jury. [1 1] However, the Norman people had very strong administrative ability, and they expanded the scope of investigating the jury as a general way of government management. Royal officials sent by the central government can call an investigation jury when investigating local people, and the jury will swear to provide relevant information truthfully. Both administrative officials and judicial officials can use this kind of investigation jury to obtain relevant information. [12] For example, administrative officials asked them about economic or other issues such as land possession and property, and judicial officials ordered them to put forward criminal suspects or express their opinions on whether the criminal charges were true or not. This strengthened the control and management of the central kingship over the whole country, and soon, the Principality of Normandy established a central institutional system. [13] It can be said that this kind of investigation jury is actually a means for the Norman royal family to try to establish its systematic bureaucratic management organization in the face of feudal conditions, and it is an effective way for the central imperial power to exploit local feudal forces (neutral countries), as the Frank royal family did.
Norman rulers regarded jury investigation as a common way of government management, which was introduced into the practice of England shortly after William I, Duke of Normandy, conquered England. The most famous is 1086 doomsday book's tax population survey statistics. [14] In this nationwide "bottom-up" survey, twelve neighboring investigation juries are widely used by royal officials, and the investigation juries must truthfully answer the questions raised by royal officials, otherwise they will be punished. This kind of neighbor investigation jury can provide the royal officials with the detailed information they need quickly and effectively, so the neighbor investigation jury played an inestimable role in William's completion of his investigation plan as scheduled. The Doomsday Book affirmed William's possession of land after conquering England and deprived farmers of their rights, which played a very important role in the centralization of England. [15] It is no exaggeration to say that this time 12 people from the local people investigated the jury and played an embarrassing role as a "pioneer" on the difficult road for the royal family to seize power for itself. And we can see that this kind of investigation jury is essentially a group witness. Of course, as mentioned above, William and his successors have widely used this kind of group witness in various administrative affairs of the royal family, because it is so effective to obtain all kinds of information needed by the royal administration, and the royal administration is therefore efficient. Moreover, at the local level, the royal family called such an investigation jury by sending a judge to investigate whether local officials had committed any misconduct against the royal family in Ayr, so as to control and supervise local administrative and judicial activities. This shows the significance of the jury to the British royal family. Until the14th century, due to the emergence of a parliament composed of local county representatives, the king could get the information he needed from all over the country without sending officials around. In addition, Justice Al, who is also in charge of administrative duties, is increasingly unpopular with the public. Under the strong demand of the public, they were quickly replaced by circuit judges, who were full-time judges. [16] and the bureaucratic system of specialized and standardized operation of the royal family has been basically established in the whole country, and the original way of obtaining evidence (investigation jury) is somewhat difficult to meet the needs of this specialized and standardized operation. Therefore, in the14th century, the investigation jury in royal administrative affairs gradually declined and evolved to be mainly related to judicial trials.
Of course, the investigation jury was not introduced into judicial trial until14th century. As mentioned earlier, the 12-person investigation jury was introduced from Normandy by the British royal family after the Norman conquest, so that it was widely used in government management. However, historical data show that it was not until Henry II that the investigation jury was fixedly applied to judicial trials in Britain. Before [17], there were few cases in which juries were used in judicial trials. According to records, Geoffrey, the Duke of Anjou, the father of Henry II, used juries in important civil cases. To be sure, Henry II is no stranger to a twelve-member jury, whether in administrative affairs or judicial trials. However, before Henry II, the judicial power of the royal family was always informal, and almost all judicial power was in the hands of local feudal forces. The royal intervention in local justice is considered to be against the laws of nature and intolerable. [18] This seriously hindered the centralization of the royal family. And "there is a lot of money in justice" (English proverb), justice can bring rich economic income. Therefore, judicial power is undoubtedly of extraordinary significance to the British royal family, both politically and economically. Henry II is a brilliant and great king in English history. In order to exploit the local feudal judicial power and expand the royal judicial power, he made subtle and fundamental changes to the traditional "writ"-that is, he made it "judicial".
When William the Conqueror and his successors ruled England, the royal family used writs for the first time to manage the whole country. The royal family issued a writ ordering feudal lords and county magistrates to correct and deal with those illegal acts that attracted the king's attention (acts that hindered the king's peace). There are many kinds of these writs, each of which is to solve the case of the king's intervention. Therefore, these writs are actually powerful tools for the king to infiltrate power into local governments. Because these writs contained administrative orders issued by the king to the local government, the feudal lords who received the writs had to deal with the illegal acts that attracted the king's attention. Therefore, the writ at this time is administrative. However, in order to further intervene in local affairs and safeguard the royal judicial power, Henry II "judicialized" the original administrative writ-the writ did not simply tell the local feudal lords what to do, but ordered them to summon the parties who violated the law to the judge sent by the royal family to conduct litigation, and the royal judge began to hear and decide the case. In this way, the final right to deal with illegal acts is actually transferred to the royal family. This is a wonderful usurpation of local power by the royal family. Therefore, every writ of the king will lead to a lawsuit, which is no longer a simple administrative order. In this sense, the king's writ is "judicial". The obvious consequence of this judicial writ is that the judicial power of the royal family can be extended, and the parties who get the judicial writ (civil disputes, criminal cases through felony appeal or grand jury, not through judicial writ) can only appear in court before the royal judge.
For the effectiveness of the reform, he also combined the investigation jury with his "judicial" writ system. In this way, every civil case that can be under the jurisdiction of the royal court or judge according to the king's judicial writ must be tried by a twelve-member jury, and the jury is required as a method of obtaining evidence, rather than the original means of obtaining evidence such as sworn judgment or divine judgment, so that the whole public can use the investigation jury as a formal system in specific types of civil cases (mainly involving land litigation) within the royal jurisdiction. At the same time, Henry II was supplemented by the system of regular judges sent by the royal family. In this way, Henry II established the exclusive jurisdiction of the royal family over the issuance of writs and jury proceedings, and legalized the judicial power of the royal family. [19] Therefore, in some types of civil cases presided over by royal judges, it has become an institutional practice to use a jury composed of 12 members to try cases [20].