The concepts of the civil jury system date back to the Middle Ages “when twelve ‘compurgators,’ essentially witnesses, were gathered together to take an oath that [a] party was honest, or to attest that they had witnessed a relevant transaction. The assumption was that God would intervene on the side of the innocent person” (Doroshow 3). These essential prejudices boil down to the belief that each individual possesses an inalienable right to defend his/her self. The Founding Fathers of the United States supported this belief. Even though it took numerous years to include a protection against the infringement of individuals to defend his/herselves in civil cases in the law of the United States, many colonies included such a protection in their colonial constitutions. Some of these included: the 1776 Constitution of Virginia Bill of Rights, the 1776 Constitution …show more content…
For this reason, safeguarding the civil jury system for future generations holds great importance to anyone who wishes to give a better future to the next generation. Correspondingly, “civil juries express the conscience of the community, injecting shared values into their decisions about society’s tolerance for certain types of behavior. In this way, civil juries perform a norm-setting or signaling function that deters potential wrongdoers from dangerous conduct… In addition, the civil jury system educates the public about civic virtues, democratic values and the law itself” (IMPACT 1). Basically, the right of trial by jury must be sustained because it is the right of the people and in the end, it involves more people in their civic duties and helps regulate the courts and