Encyclopedia > Jury trial

  Article Content

Jury trial

The jury trial, is a common law process by which the "peers of the accused" are responsible for listening to a dispute, evaluating the evidence presented, deciding on the facts, and making a decision in accordance with the rules of law and their jury instructions. Some jurisdictions allow the defendant to waive their right to a jury trial, this leading to a bench trial[?]. Trial by jury is rarely used in civil law jurisdictions, although many civil law jurisdictions do have lay assessors[?]. Jury trials tend to occur only when a crime is considered serious. Because jury trials tend to be high profile, the general public tends to overestimate the frequency of jury trials.

The United States The vast majority of US criminal cases are not settled by a jury, but rather by plea bargain. Both prosecutors[?] and defendants often have a strong interest in resolving the criminal case by negotiation.

Blanton v. City of North Las Vegas In Blanton v. City of North Las Vegas[?] (US-1989) it was ruled: "offenses for which the maximum period of incarceration is six months, or less, are presumptively petty...a defendant can overcome this, and become entitled to a jury trial,..by showing that additional penalties [such as monetary fines]...are...so severe [as to indicate] that the legislature clearly determined that the offenese is a serious one."

See also:



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Wheatley Heights, New York

... 13.0% of all households are made up of individuals and 5.2% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 3.42 and th ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 25.4 ms