When pilgrims first sailed to the new world they maintained their roots in English common law despite their quest for religious freedom. The Pilgrims established Colonial law three years after their landing on Plymouth where it was ruled:
“that all criminal facts, and also matters of trespasse and debts betweene man and man should be tried by the verdict of twelve honest men to be impaneled by the authority in forme of a jury upon their oath.” The first case of a jury trial was in Plymouth, 1630 when John Billington was accused of murdering John Newcomin, a fellow colonist that was aboard the Mayflower. The defendant, John Billington was sentenced to hang after the jury convicted him of “willful murder by plain and notorious evidence.” Around the same time the Pilgrims settled in what would become Boston,
…show more content…
It wouldn’t be until 1950, nearly 100 years since the first African-Americans were impaneled that women would be given the right to serve on a jury. Although the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 granted women the right to vote; women had to persevere vigorous opposition in order to gain the right to serve in a jury. The majority of the opposition were the same who opposed the women’s suffrage movement claiming that having women serve on a jury was “almost unthinkable” as they felt women were too delicate and to subject them to jury service would pull them away from their household duties. It wasn’t until 1951 that the first two women were impaneled on a jury in Massachusetts, by then there were only 9 states left that wouldn’t allow women to serve on a jury. However, was the only state that would allow a woman to be excused from her duties on certain cases is an element would be embarrassing to her; furthermore, women were allowed to exempt themselves from serving in a jury due to their