We the jury ...: secretive by design, juries are increasingly the object of public and media scrutiny. Is that good for America's legal system?

• Author: Liptak, Adam
• Position: National

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand how the jury system works and why juries are increasingly the subject of public and media scrutiny.

ROLE-PLAY: Tell students to assume that they have been hired as jury consultants and must examine prospective jurors for a murder trial.

What questions would they ask each prospective juror to determine whether or not he or she would make a suitable juror for the murder trial?

Take a few minutes to discuss students' questions. Then Present them with a few of the types of questions judges or attorneys typically ask prospective jurors. Discuss why prospective jurors might be asked each of these questions.

* Have the prospective jurors heard anything about the case?

* Do they know anyone who is linked to the case, including the attorneys, the judge, or any court officers?

* Would press coverage of the trial influence their judgment?

* What is the highest level of education they have attained?

* Have they or anyone close to them been the victim of a serious crime?

INTERVIEWS: Ask students to find out if their parents or other relatives have ever served on a jury. If so, have them do brief interviews about their jury service. Here are a few questions students might ask" Was the case criminal or civil? What do they remember about the deliberations? Did the jury find the defendant guilty or innocent? If guilty, what was the punishment? Did they think the process was fair to both sides? Use students' interview results to spur further discussion.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* Explain why you would--or would not--like to serve on a jury.

* Do you agree with the policy that mandates jury duty?

* Should TV cameras be allowed to record jury deliberations?

WEB WATCH: www.abanet.org/publiced/courts/jury_role.html, an American Bar Association site, offers brief explanations of the structure of courts, the role of judges, judicial independence, and trial and grand juries.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world," Mark Twain wrote in 1873. "Its efficiency is marred only by the difficulty of finding 12 men every day who don't know anything."

Juries these days include women, of course, but in other ways they are still something of a paradox. In most trials, 12 amateurs, selected in large part for their ignorance of the particular issues involved, have almost total power to decide what will happen to the people involved. They can set one defendant free and sentence another to death. They can reject lawsuits as frivolous or order companies to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

With television shows like Lazy & Order, networks like Court TV...