Where did a jury trial originate from?

Question

I did a website to help find the history of a jury trial..

Answer 1

i think after the norman conquest of england in 1066, William the conqueror allowed people to go tto trial against a group of thei peers and i think they called it a jury

Answer 2

If one considers the jury trial as one of lay judges and do not limit the number to the twelve of Anglo-Saxon common law, it can be said that the jury can be found as far back as ancient Greece and Rome. The judicial procedure in Athens that Aristotle recorded in The Athenian Constitution, was the following: to be a juror or dikaste, one needed to be over thirty, not owe anything to the state and not be a slave. The dikaste, the individuals who formed part of the Athenian jury, were chosen by lot by the Archons of their tribe, each of the Archons of the nine tribes contributing to the formation of the dikastai. There existed a mechanism through which it was assured that no one could elect dikaste for their own trial. For normal cases, the courts were made up of dikastai of 500 citizens. For capital cases, those which involved death, the loss of liberty, exile, the loss of civil rights, or the seizure of property, the trial was before a jury of 1,000 to 1,500 dikastai. It isn’t hard to see why the unanimity rule would be unrealistic in this kind of trial, as well as why it should be unstable as a form of government.

From the beginnings of the republic and in the majority of civil cases towards the end of the empire, there were tribunals with the characteristics of the jury, the Roman judges being civilian, lay and not professional. Capital trials were held in front of juries composed of hundreds or thousands of people in the commitias or centuries, the same as in Greek trials. There exists a connection between England and Rome that goes back to the time of Julius Caesar, when he conquered the southern part of the British isle. How deep was the imprint left by the Roman institutions on the Celts that were romanized is difficult to determine. With the fall of the Roman empire and the following barbarization of the region, historians doubt that Roman customs and laws survived. The arrival of Roman institutions to England is more widely attributed to William the Conqueror and the Normans during times of greater interest in Roman law.

According to George Macaulay Trevelyan in A Shortened History of England, during the Viking occupation: “The Scandinavians, when not on the Viking warpath, were a litigious people and loved to get together in the ‘thing’ to hear legal argument. They had no professional lawyers, but many of their farmer-warriors, like Njal, the truth-teller, were learned in folk custom and in its intricate judicial procedure. A Danish town in England often had, as its principal officers, twelve hereditary ‘law men.’ The Danes introduced the habit of making committees among the free men in court, which perhaps made England favorable ground for the future growth of the jury system out of a Frankish custom later introduced by the Normans.” The English king Ethelred the Unready set up an early legal system through the Wantage Code of Ethelred, one provision of which stated that the twelve leading thegns (minor nobles) of each wapentake (a small district) were required to swear that they would investigate crimes without a bias. These juries differed from the modern sort by being self-informing; instead of getting information through a trial, the jurors were required to investigate the case themselves.[1]

King Henry II took a major step in developing the jury system. Henry II set up a system to resolve land disputes using juries. A jury of twelve free men were assigned to arbitrate in these disputes. Unlike the modern jury, these men were charged with uncovering the facts of the case on their own rather than listening to arguments in court.

Henry II also introduced what is now known as the "grand jury" through his Assize of Clarendon. Under the assize, a jury of free men was charged with reporting any crimes that they knew of in their hundred to a "justice in eyre," a judge who moved between hundreds on a circuit. A criminal accused by this jury was given a trial by ordeal.

The Church banned participation of clergy in trial by ordeal in 1215. Without the legitimacy of religion, trial by ordeal collapsed. The juries under the assizes began deciding guilt as well as providing accusations. The same year, trial by jury became a pretty explicit right in one of the most influential clauses of Magna Carta, signed by King John. Article 39 of the Magna Carta read:

Answer 3

the law of torte , thank goodness those day's have improved for every one

Answer 4

The American jury system has its basis in English common law.

Here are some of the basic rights that the English considered vital.

1.right to trial before a neutral judge and jury

2.protection of life, liberty, and property from illegal procedures;

3.right to information, particularly about accusations;

4.the idea that one is innocent until proven guilty

5.right to be represented by counsel and to call witnesses in defense.