We, the Jury: The Jury System and the Ideal of Democracy

by Jeffrey Abramson and Jeffrey B. Abramson

Book Overview

In a new preface to this foundational book on the American jury, Jeffrey Abramson responds to his critics, defends his views on the jury as an embodiment of deliberative democracy in action, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465036988
• ISBN13: 9780465036981
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 24.3" x 16.4" x 3.0"

Customer Reviews

If it's not broken don't fix it...

During the Dark Ages, when the European continent was burning its "witches", the juries of Great Britain were acquitting theirs. In the continental US, juries took a stand against tyranny and acquitted John Peter Zenger, they asserted their independence from government control and they otherwise have operated as a hedge against tyranny. Curtail them? Cut back their perogatives? As a trial attorney of over twenty years, I believe American juries should be given even broader sway. Notes, they should be permitted to take them and more so now are permitted to do just that. Be given written instructions at the start of their proceedings? Again overwhelmingly practices like these are being instituted. But curtail them? Eliminate them? Do so and you will strike a blow at the very idea of American justice itself. For every OJ verdict you could get more than its weight in crooked politicians or errant jurists. The dirty little secret of American politics is that its best public service comes not from those who spend millions to gain their office but those whose office has been thrust upon them by dint of their placement on voter lists: our jurors, the heart of our justice system.

Dated but brilliant

There is a canard that to not know history it to be doomed to repeat it. Usually I have found that most people who read history do so in a manner that distorts it to fit their own views on contemporary issues (Newt Gingrich is a good example of this). This is not necessarily a bad thing but the reader should be self-aware. There is some truth to the canard. It is impossible to read in early American history without realizing that many of the same issues that the founding generations dealt with are still being played out in the political arena. I came to this book because I was looking for detailed background on the historical evolution of the jury, especially in regards to jury nullification. Over and over again in the ratification debates, various founders discuss the need for the jury to be able to decide on the law itself not just the facts of the case. Abramson gives an excellent succinct discussion of the history, as well as the history of other aspects of the jury's role; e.g., the unanimous verdict, preemptory challenges and the application of the death penalty. What makes these discussions particularly incisive (ironic?) is that Abramson contrasts our historical realities with an ideal of jury deliberation. In his ideal type, the jury is a model of deliberative democracy. People bring to their jury duty the sum total of their knowledge and experience and work together to fashion a unanimous verdict based on a worked out sense of community justice. Abramson, I believe, regards this model as the ideal that juries have striven for over the centuries. One aspect of this ideal that he emphasizes is that it is only on a jury that most of us get to actually participate in the act of governance. As a juror, I decide when and how to apply the law to my fellow citizens. At that moment, I am the government. Abramson adds a new touch to this by insisting that jurors as members of the various groups that make up their identities (gender, class, religion, ethnicity, etc.) bring to the deliberation the different points of views that represents those groups. As long as we don't act as blind voting blocks for those groups but still listen, debate and decide together, we are still living up to the democratic ideal of the jury. Abramson's discussion is incredibly rich. I will detail one further aspect of it in order (I hope) to whet your appetite. In regards to jury nullification, Abramson makes an useful distinction. We may no longer have a legal right to nullify the law when on a jury (Sparf and Hansen v. United States, 1895) but we always have the power to do so. Jury nullification continues to occur (I would argue that the only way to understand the OJ Simpson verdict is as an instance of nullification). Abramson wants us to face up to this reality. We should instruct juries as to their power to nullify. His main argument for this is that nullification works only to an acquittal, not to convict (p. 92). In this I think he is a bit naive or relying on a

Finally back in print

It's a relief to see Prof. Abramson's fine volume on juries back in print. One of the most important books on juries written in recent years, Abramson looks at the political role of juries and makes several original observations that are in themselves worth the price of admission. This is the sort of book that is appropriate for lawyers, law and graduate students and laypersons alike.When this book originally came out in 1994, Prof. Abramson appeared at a great number of academic symposia and other events having to do with the jury system. To some extent, this book became the focal point of the current wave of interest in the jury system, much like Kalven and Zeisel's "The American Jury" did in the 1960's. The updated preface appears to be the result of the interactions and dialogues Prof. Abramson developed with other serious jury researchers as a result of these experiences. That said, let's hope that the book remains in print for some time.