The Jury and Democracy

The Jury and Democracy PDF Author: John Gastil
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199888531
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and the U.S. Supreme Court have all alleged that jury service promotes civic and political engagement, yet none could prove it. Finally, The Jury and Democracy provides compelling systematic evidence to support this view. Drawing from in-depth interviews, thousands of juror surveys, and court and voting records from across the United States, the authors show that serving on a jury can trigger changes in how citizens view themselves, their peers, and their government--and can even significantly increase electoral turnout among infrequent voters. Jury service also sparks long-term shifts in media use, political action, and community involvement. In an era when involved Americans are searching for ways to inspire their fellow citizens, The Jury and Democracy offers a plausible and realistic path for turning passive spectators into active political participants.

The Jury and Democracy

The Jury and Democracy PDF Author: John Gastil
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199888531
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and the U.S. Supreme Court have all alleged that jury service promotes civic and political engagement, yet none could prove it. Finally, The Jury and Democracy provides compelling systematic evidence to support this view. Drawing from in-depth interviews, thousands of juror surveys, and court and voting records from across the United States, the authors show that serving on a jury can trigger changes in how citizens view themselves, their peers, and their government--and can even significantly increase electoral turnout among infrequent voters. Jury service also sparks long-term shifts in media use, political action, and community involvement. In an era when involved Americans are searching for ways to inspire their fellow citizens, The Jury and Democracy offers a plausible and realistic path for turning passive spectators into active political participants.

We, the Jury

We, the Jury PDF Author: Jeffrey B. Abramson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674004306
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
This magisterial book explores fascinating cases from American history to show how juries remain the heart of our system of criminal justice - and an essential element of our democracy. No other institution of government rivals the jury in placing power so directly in the hands of citizens. Jeffrey Abramson draws upon his own background as both a lawyer and a political theorist to capture the full democratic drama that is the jury. We, the Jury is a rare work of scholarship that brings the history of the jury alive and shows the origins of many of today's dilemmas surrounding juries and justice.

Justice, Democracy and the Jury

Justice, Democracy and the Jury PDF Author: James Gobert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429676093
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
First published in 1997, this volume recognises that on trial in every criminal case heard by a jury is not only the defendant but the democratic premise that ordinary citizens are capable of sitting in judgement on that defendant. The jury is a quintessential democratic institution, the lay cog in a criminal justice machine dominated by lawyers, judges and police. Today, however, the jury finds itself under attack – on the right, for perverse verdicts, and, on the left, for miscarriages of justice. Justice, Democracy and the Jury is an attempt to place the jury within a historical, political and philosophical framework, and to analyse the decision-making processes at work on a jury. The book also examines whether the model of the jury can be adapted to other decision-making contexts and whether "citizens juries" can be used to revive a flagging democracy and to empower the people on issues of public concern.

Punishment, Participatory Democracy, and the Jury

Punishment, Participatory Democracy, and the Jury PDF Author: Albert W. Dzur
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199874093
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Focusing democratic theory on the pressing issue of punishment, this book argues for participatory institutional designs as antidotes to the American penal state.

Punishment, Participatory Democracy, and the Jury

Punishment, Participatory Democracy, and the Jury PDF Author: Albert W. Dzur
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199874107
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Focusing contemporary democratic theory on the neglected topic of punishment, Punishment, Participatory Democracy, and the Jury argues for increased civic engagement in criminal justice as an antidote to the American penal state. Albert W. Dzur considers how the jury, rather than merely expressing unreflective public opinion, may serve as a participatory institution that gathers and utilizes citizens' juridical capabilities. In doing so, the book resists trends in criminal justice scholarship that blame increases in penal severity on citizen participation and rejects political theorists' longstanding skepticism of lay abilities. Dzur distinguishes constructive citizen involvement that takes responsibility for public problems from a mass politics mobilized superficially around single issues. This more positive view of citizen action, which was once a major justification for the jury trial, is now also manifest in the restorative justice movement, which has incorporated lay people into community boards and sentencing circles. Both jury trials and restorative justice programs, Dzur explains, are examples of rational disorganization, in which lay citizen action renders a process less efficient yet also contributes valuable qualities such as attunement, reflectiveness, and full-bodied communication. While restorative justice programs and participatory policy forums such as citizens' juries have become attractive to reformers, traditional juries have suffered a steep and troubling decline. Punishment, Participatory Democracy, and the Jury advocates a broader role for jurors in the criminal courts and more widespread use of jury trials. Though no panacea for a political culture grown too comfortable with criminalization and incarceration, participatory institutional designs that rationally disorganize punishment practices and slow down criminal justice can catalyze civic responsibility and public awareness about the need to find alternative paths forward for America's broken penal system.

Why Jury Duty Matters

Why Jury Duty Matters PDF Author: Andrew G. Ferguson
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814729037
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Places the idea of jury duty into perspective, noting its importance as a constitutional responsibility, and describes ways in which the experience may be enriched.

Radical Enfranchisement in the Jury Room and Public Life

Radical Enfranchisement in the Jury Room and Public Life PDF Author: Sonali Chakravarti
Publisher:
ISBN: 022665429X
Category : Jury
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Juries have been at the center of some of the most emotionally charged moments of political life. At the same time, their capacity for legitimate decision making has been under scrutiny, because of events like the acquittal of George Zimmerman by a Florida jury for the shooting of Trayvon Martin and the decisions of several grand juries not to indict police officers for the killing of unarmed black men. Meanwhile, the overall use of juries has also declined in recent years, with most cases settled or resolved by plea bargain. With Radical Enfranchisement in the Jury Room and Public Life, Sonali Chakravarti offers a full-throated defense of juries as a democratic institution. She argues that juries provide an important site for democratic action by citizens and that their use should be revived. The jury, Chakravarti argues, could be a forward-looking institution that nurtures the best democratic instincts of citizens, but this requires a change in civic education regarding the skills that should be cultivated in jurors before and through the process of a trial. Being a juror, perhaps counterintuitively, can guide citizens in how to be thoughtful rule-breakers by changing their relationship to their own perceptions and biases and by making options for collective action salient, but they must be better prepared and instructed along the way.

Justice, Democracy and the Jury

Justice, Democracy and the Jury PDF Author: James Gobert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367026677
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
First published in 1997, this volume recognises that on trial in every criminal case heard by a jury is not only the defendant but the democratic premise that ordinary citizens are capable of sitting in judgement on that defendant. The jury is a quintessential democratic institution, the lay cog in a criminal justice machine dominated by lawyers, judges and police. Today, however, the jury finds itself under attack - on the right, for perverse verdicts, and, on the left, for miscarriages of justice. Justice, Democracy and the Jury is an attempt to place the jury within a historical, political and philosophical framework, and to analyse the decision-making processes at work on a jury. The book also examines whether the model of the jury can be adapted to other decision-making contexts and whether "citizens juries" can be used to revive a flagging democracy and to empower the people on issues of public concern.

Open Democracy

Open Democracy PDF Author: Hélène Landemore
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691212392
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
To the ancient Greeks, democracy meant gathering in public and debating laws set by a randomly selected assembly of several hundred citizens. To the Icelandic Vikings, democracy meant meeting every summer in a field to discuss issues until consensus was reached. Our contemporary representative democracies are very different. Modern parliaments are gated and guarded, and it seems as if only certain people are welcome. Diagnosing what is wrong with representative government and aiming to recover some of the openness of ancient democracies, Open Democracy presents a new paradigm of democracy. Supporting a fresh nonelectoral understanding of democratic representation, Hélène Landemore demonstrates that placing ordinary citizens, rather than elites, at the heart of democratic power is not only the true meaning of a government of, by, and for the people, but also feasible and, more than ever, urgently needed. -- Cover page 4.

In the Hands of the People

In the Hands of the People PDF Author: William L. Dwyer
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429973293
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
In a passionate warning that is not only well-reasoned, as becomes a renowned former trial lawyer and present federal judge, but is also a compelling and entertaining read, William L. Dwyer defies those who would abolish our jury system and hand over its power to judges or to panels of "experts." He aims, by making his readers aware of what should be done, to help us save what he calls "America's most democratic institution." In an overview of litigation's universe, Dwyer goes back several centuries to describe the often terrifying ways our ancestors arrived at verdicts of guilt or innocence. Tracing the evolution of our present-day system, he gives us excerpts from the actual records of such trials as that of young William Penn, arrested for preaching Quaker beliefs in public; the Salem witch trials; and the landmark civil rights trial of 18th century newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger, whose attorney was the original "Philadelphia lawyer." Along with these famous courtroom episodes are many never before described in print, all of them infused with the drama that gives life to the law. Dwyer's language is clear and engaging - a pleasant surprise for readers apprehensive about legal gobbledygook. He has a store of courtroom "war stories," some inspiring, some alarming, many enlivened by gleams of the author's wry humor. Underlying that humor, however, is the judge's fear that the jury system is endangered by neglect and misunderstanding, and could be lost without the public being aware of what is happening. The book shows that despite much adverse publicity, the American jury still works capably, at times brilliantly, when given a fair chance by the legal professionals who run trials. Consequently, the author deals with what has gone wrong with American litigation, the controversy over the jury's competence and integrity, and trial and pretrial reforms that must be made to save trial by jury and reshape American litigation in the twenty-first century.