Essay On Jury Trial

A jury is made of twelve United States citizens, sometimes six, that help in criminal cases to see if the defendant is guilty or not guilty. They must evaluate all evidence and take motives into consideration when deciding if a defendant should be found guilty or not guilty. These twelve citizens tend to have no legal training and must be unbiased throughout the whole criminal trial for it to be fair. Candidates must pass a background check for the case to remain impaired. As humans tend to have internal biases whether they realize it or not many question if criminal cases should have a jury. Having a jury promotes a lesser miscarriage of justice as they usually do not favor the defendant, or place themself in the shoes of the one party during a trial. The jury can be one sided whether it is with the defendant or the prosecutor. In this case they may tend to favor the defendant. There has been research that juries apply community standards to finding a defendant guilty or not guilty. In the article, Jury Trial: In favor by Neil Vidmar, he says “Moreover, juries often sided with defendants, even when the patients were severely injured, indicating that the jurors were not swayed by sympathy in making their decisions.” Basically, what Vidmar is saying is that jurors usually do not make a decision when deciding a verdict with their emotions.

They may look at the evidence through the lenses of their past experiences and their knowledge. As a professor of law at Duke University, Vidmar says in his article “Moreover, the research shows that in deliberations jurors combine their individual perspectives on the evidence and debates its relative merits before arriving at a verdict.” In making this comment, Vidmar argues that jurors can make verdict decisions based on their past experiences. Showing another way that they may secretly be biased against a party in the