Trial by Jury in Criminal Cases - Medieval England's....

ABOUT MY BOOK

• This is a book for young Americans, 6th Grade and up. It is also a book for older Americans who possess only a rudimentary knowledge of our criminal justice system. As you read this book, you will learn how our jury system in criminal cases came to be, and how it works today in America. You will also learn of the rights of every American that are embedded in our Bill of Rights, designed to ensure that criminal trials — both jury and non-jury — are fair to the accused, the victim and the public, generally. 

• In all my history classes, and in all my law school classes, nobody ever explained where the petit jury came from. Was the petit jury an ancient institution used in England from time immemorial? Did some English King decree that “all criminal cases will hereafter be tried by a jury of twelve men good and true?” Did Parliament pass a law stating that all English criminal trial shall be by a jury of 12? 

• We all know that Magna Carta, 1215 A.D., guaranteed the barons and all freemen the option of “trial by their peers.” Is that where English jury trials came from? The answer is, not exactly. 

• Rather, the use of jury trials in criminal cases in England, appears to have been an unintended consequence of Pope Innocent III, and his 4th Lateran Council. Innocent’s intent was clearly to reform and improve the church and church law. There is not an iota of evidence to even suggest that he intended that jury trial should henceforth be used to decide criminal cases in England. 

• But that is exactly what happened. The revision of canon law at the 4th Council of the Lateran forced the authorities in England to opt for a new method of trying criminal cases in the realm. 

• This book traces the footsteps of the justice in eyre (the King’s itinerant judges), as the set about using the jury to decide guilt or innocence in criminal case, and acting to convince the English people of the merits of their new system. 

• In the process, I examine the Rolls of the Justice in Eyre to show precisely what the judges did to sell their new criminal justice system.