Learning from Precursors, Shaping It from Experiences

• Date: 01 September 2017
• Published date: 01 September 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12285

Commentary on Valerie P. Hans’s Presidential Address

Learning from Precursors, Shaping It from

Experiences

Masayuki Murayama

Iam honored to have the opportunity to comment on Professor

Valerie Hans’s presidential address on the jury trial as a legal trans-

plant. In her address, Professor Hans presents a panoramic view of

“the global dissemination of institutions of lay participation in law,”

starting from the newest jury systems in Argentina, going back to

the origin of the jury trial in England, then going on to the dissemi-

nation of jury to English colonies and countries conquered by

Napoleon and to recent waves of dissemination of lay participation

in Europe and East Asia. She also emphasizes important roles

scholars played in international collaborations to understand the

process of transplanting legal institutions, which “in some instances

help to shape political debates over the adoption and implementa-

tion of... jury trials and mixed courts around the globe.” As she

describes, Japan recently introduced a mixed panel of lay judges

sitting together with professional judges. Drawing upon Japanese

experiences, I would like to bring a different point of view to Pro-

fessor Hans’s discussion of juries as traveling legal institutions.

After a close overview of recent experiences with lay participation

in Japan, I argue that countries learn from their experiences, and

Professor, School of Law, Meiji University. My first encounter with jury trial occurred

when I watched The Defenders on the Japanese national TV channel in 1962. Then, I

watched Twelve Angry Men and was fascinated to see how the American jury worked. I

firmly believed that we should have such a wonderful democratic institution in Japan and

did not doubt that people who would watch the movie would have the same opinion.

Much later when I began to teach at a university, I asked opinions of students on jury trial,

after playing the video of Twelve Angry Men in my class. Surprisingly, a majority of them

had negative opinions on jury trial, saying that people would behave like the man who

wanted to go to a ball game. I explained in vain how jury could deliberate in collective

thinking. The students taught me that it would not be easy to bring jury to Japan. But at

the same time, because of these very popular TV series and the movie, jury trial has been

always “there” to think about as a possible element of criminal justice among post-war gen-

erations in Japan.

Please direct all correspondence to Masayuki Murayama, School of Law, Meiji Univer-

sity, 1-1 Kanda Surugadai, Chiyodaku, Tokyo 101-8301; email: masayuki.murayama@

gmail.com.

Law & Society Review, Volume 51, Number 3 (2017)

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