Our jury system distinguishes us from every other country in the world. No other nation is willing to give its citizens the authority and power that we give to a jury. The one issue our Founding Fathers initially agreed upon before debating the creation of the Constitution was the fundamental right to a jury. Our Constitution references the right to a jury five times, once in the original text (Article III, Section 2) and four times in the Bill of Rights (in the Fifth, the Sixth, and the Seventh Amendments).
A jury is a committee from the community, of citizens from different walks of life, using their common sense to judge the case presented to them. Judges and scholars have said for hundreds of years that a jury is the conscience of the community. It sets the standards in the community and, with courage, enforces the law. At the end of the day, our laws would not be enforced without jurors standing as the last line of defense for justice. They are our guardians who protect us and keep us safe with a verdict.
“Representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Without them we have no other fortification against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle, and fed and clothed like swine and hounds.”
“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”