Despite all the law-and-order and Court TV programs, there's plenty we lay people don't know about the tradition of trial by jury, where that tradition is strong, where it is growing, and where it's declining.
THE ECONOMIST article "The jury is out" brings does a fine job filling those gaps. The main purpose of the piece is to inform us that three Asian nations - China, Japan, and South Korea - are stepping up use of the jury trial. On the other hand, Russia and Britain are restricting them.
It undermines my credibility as a legal writer to admit this but I didn't know, as THE ECONOMIST states, "It is often thought that juries are a peculiarity of common-law countries such as America and Britain. Not so. Twelve-member citizens' juries are widely used in Islamic-law countries, too."
What I do know is that the jury system has become very controversial. Some contend, as is part of the reason why Britain is backing off, that many trials deal with such complex technical issues - never mind the legal ones - that lay people are not equipped to make decisions about them. Others argue that the acquittal rate is high in jury trials and this seems to be the rationale behind Russia's doing away with most jury trials. Also, there is the matter of the high awards. In the Lilly Ledbetter court case about wage discrimination which had taken place decades before, the jury awarded a hefty sum.
The Asian nations may be embracing the jury trials, observes THE ECONOMIST, "in a bid to modernise an opaque legal system." It also could help their ability to be selected for global supply chains. China took it on the chin worldwide in the melamine contamination crisis. The rest of the world might have been ready to do business with China faster if the nation had a sophisticated system of product liability.
Twice plaintiff attorney Bill Marler of Marler Clark Law Firm, which specializes in food-borne diseases, provided seminars in China on the U.S. legal approach to product liability. Ironically, Marler was in China delivering that talk during the peak of the melamine infant deaths. You can follow that story on Marler's blog.
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