Jury Related Scholarship

Here are two relatively new articles about juries.

1. Ma, Ma, Where's My Pa? On Your Jury, Ha, Ha!: Constitutional Analysis of Implied Bias Challenges for Cause, 84 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 45 (2007). This law review article discusses the issue of sitting judges and jurors who have a connection (through relatives) with the case that they are deciding. Specifically, the article focuses on the jurisprudence of "actual" and "implied" bias of judges and jurors. Coincidentally, Anne Reed of the blog Deliberations also has a recent post about this same issue.

2. "South Korea Signs On." This article, written by yours truly and published in the National Law Journal, briefly discusses South Korea's move towards incorporating juries into their legal system. Here is an excerpt:

In the United States, jury trials are an everyday occurrence and a constitutional right of the criminal defendant. But many countries like South Korea that have no common law tradition also have no experience with juries. Instead, they rely entirely on judges to determine an individual's guilt or innocence. The idea of entrusting the liberty of the defendant to random citizens, who for the most part lack any legal training and are accountable to no one, is truly revolutionary to them. Yet, despite this lack of familiarity, more and more countries, especially in Asia, are re-examining their legal systems to see if they, too, would benefit from greater lay participation in criminal trials.

As most will recall, I have previously blogged about the use of juries in South Korea.