Volume 93 Symposium (2024)

The George Washington Law Review Symposium
October 25, 2024
The Survival of the Jury

This symposium will critically assess the past, present, and future of the jury in the U.S. legal system. In the United States, juries are fundamental to the system of justice—at least in theory.  Guarantees of rights to a jury appear four times in the U.S. Constitution: in Article III and the Sixth Amendment for the criminal jury, in the Seventh Amendment for the civil jury, and in the Fifth Amendment for the grand jury. Many Americans believe that jury trials routinely resolve criminal and civil cases. And yet, plea bargaining is engulfing criminal jury trial, settlement is displacing civil jury trial, and plea deals are occurring before grand jury indictment. Agreements between parties, with more or less coercion, are replacing adjudication. This replacement has profound implications for the civil and criminal justice systems. 

This symposium will address the historical and current reasons for juries and the causes of their decline, together with proposals for the future. A notable feature of this symposium is placing these developments in a comparative light. How and why other legal systems use—or decline to use—juries and lay jurors helps to illuminate the American experience and to suggest possible reforms. Juries and use of lay jurors are far more widespread than many Americans realize. They are common on the continent of Europe, especially in the form of mixed panels of both professional judges and lay jurors. Countries in Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia are increasingly adopting juries or mixed panels in an effort to promote democracy and to enhance the legitimacy of criminal justice. In light of this spread of juries around the world, the decline of juries in the United States and other common-law legal systems, where the modern jury originated, is ironic.

Recent cases in the U.S. Supreme Court–such as Ramos v. Louisiana and SEC v. Jarkesy–demonstrate ongoing controversies concerning the jury in the United States. This symposium will address these and other current legal controversies while envisioning much-needed reforms to the criminal and civil justice systems. This symposium will influence and shape jury practices well into the future.