Jurors Jury Duty

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The jury system continued to evolve over a period of time and eventually the United States Constitution was written to govern the jury system. The Sixth and Seventh Amendments stated that we should have 12 members and the cases were to be resolved upon a unanimous verdict (Landsman & Holderman2010). In the 1970’s the court approved juries of 12 or fewer and a non-unanimous verdict in civil cases in federal court cases. Since the evolution of the judicial system it has become easier to get jurors to come to court to do their civil duty. A list is compiled of selected jurors from voter registration and driver’s license information from the state (United States Courts, n.d.). Jurors are sent questionnaires in the mail that the court system sends off that must be responded to within a certain amount of time. The pulling of juror’s names is intended to be random that is why some jurors are summoned more frequently than …show more content…

The lawyers get the opportunity to introduce themselves and give a brief overview of their position about the facts of the case. The purpose of the process is to find the best juror for the case and ultimately find jurors who can be unbiased, fair, and honest. The reason why we want a fair jury is because you will want a jury of your peers meaning people who are similarly situated to you. As mentioned above, in the past juries were compiled with jurors who were wealthy, whether the person who was on trial was wealthy or poor and in that instance the defendant was not getting a fair trial. This is not to say that a wealthy person cannot be a fair and impartial juror, but a wealthy person will grow up differently than a poor defendant and have different biases based on their upbringing. Your peers are supposed to be able to only judge you on the facts and evidence from the