HISTORY OF THE JURY
By the time the United States Constitution and the
Bill of Rights were drafted and ratified, the institution of trial
by jury was almost universally revered, so revered that its history
had been traced back to Magna Carta. The jury began in the form
of a grand or presentment jury with the role of inquest and was
started by Frankish conquerors to discover the King's rights.
Henry II regularized this type of proceeding to establish royal
control over the machinery of justice, first in civil trials and
then in criminal trials. Trial by petit jury was not employed
at least until the reign of Henry III, in which the jury was first
essentially a body of witnesses, called for their knowledge of
the case; not until the reign of Henry VI did it become the trier
of evidence. It was during the Seventeenth Century that the jury
emerged as a safeguard for the criminally accused. Thus, in the
Eighteenth Century, Blackstone could commemorate the institution
as part of a ''strong and two-fold barrier . . . between the liberties
of the people and the prerogative of the crown'' because ''the
truth of every accusation . . . . [must] be confirmed by the unanimous
suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbors indifferently chosen
and superior to all suspicion.'' The right was guaranteed in the
constitutions of the original 13 States, was guaranteed in the
body of the Constitution and in the Sixth Amendment, and the constitution
of every State entering the Union thereafter in one form or another
protected the right to jury trial in criminal cases. ''Those who
emigrated to this country from England brought with them this
great privilege 'as their birthright and inheritance, as a part
of that admirable common law which had fenced around and interposed
barriers on every side against the approaches of arbitrary power.'''
''The guarantees of jury trial in the Federal and
State Constitutions reflect a profound judgment about the way
in which law should be enforced and justice administered. A right
to jury trial is granted to criminal defendants in order to prevent
oppression by the Government. Those who wrote our constitutions
knew from history and experience that it was necessary to protect
against unfounded criminal charges brought to eliminate enemies
and against judges too responsive to the voice of higher authority.
The framers of the constitutions strove to create an independent
judiciary but insisted upon further protection against arbitrary
action. Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury
of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt
overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric
judge. . . . [T]he jury trial provisions . . . reflect a fundamental
decision about the exercise of official power--a reluctance to
entrust plenary powers over the life and liberty of the citizen
to one judge or to a group of judges. Fear of unchecked power
. . . found expression in the criminal law in this insistence
upon community participation in the determination of guilt or
innocence.''
HISTORY OF THE GRAND JURY
A Grand Jury derives its name from the fact that it usually has
a greater number of jurors than a trial (petit) jury. One of the
earliest concepts of Grand Juries dates back to early Greece where
the Athenians used an accusatory body. In early Briton, the Saxons
also used something similar to a Grand Jury System. During the
years 978 to 1016, one of the Dooms (laws) stated that for each
100 men, 12 were to be named to act as an accusing body. They
were cautioned "not to accuse an innocent man or spare a
guilty one."
The Grand Jury can also be traced to the time of
the Norman conquest of England in 1066. There is evidence that
the courts of that time summoned a body of sworn neighbors to
present crimes
that had come to their knowledge. Since the members of that accusing
jury were selected from small jurisdictions, it was natural that
they could present accusations based on their personal
knowledge.
Historians agree that the Assize [court session
or assembly] of Clarendon in 1166 provided the ground work for
our present Grand Jury system. During the reign of Henry II (1154-1189),
to regain for the crown the powers usurped by Thomas Becket, Chancellor
of England, 12 "good and lawful men" in each village
were assembled to reveal the names of those suspected of crimes.
It was during this same period that juries were divided into two
types, civil and criminal, with the development of each influencing
the other.
The oath taken by these jurors provided that they
would carry out their duties faithfully, that they would aggrieve
no one through enmity nor deference to anyone through love, and
that they would conceal those things that they had heard.
By the year 1290, these accusing juries were given
the authority to inquire into the maintenance of bridges and highways,
defects of jails, and whether the Sheriff had kept in jail anyone
who should have been brought before the justices. "Le Grand
Inquest" evolved during the reign of Edward III (1368), when
the "accusatory jury" was increased in number from 12
to 23, with a majority vote necessary to indict anyone accused
of crime.
In America, the Massachusetts Bay Colony impaneled
the first Grand Jury in 1635 to consider cases of murder, robbery
and wife beating. As early as 1700, the value of the Grand Jury
was
recognized as opposing the Royalists. These colonial Grand Juries
expressed their independence by refusing to indict leaders of
the Stamp Act (1765), and refusing to bring libel charges against
the editors of the Boston Gazette (1765). A union with other colonies
to oppose British taxes was supported by the Philadelphia Grand
Jury in 1770.
By the end of the Colonial Period, the Grand Jury
had become an indispensable adjunct of Government: "they
proposed new laws, protested against abuses in government, and
wielded the
tremendous authority in their power to determine who should and
who should not face trial."
