It is a shame that we must continue to use a worthless system because it was good a thousand years ago. As recently as the early 1980s, U.S. Chief Justice Warren Burger declared a preference for Britain's system of expert judges to settle disputes. Under his leadership, federal civil courts moved from 12 jurors to six. He says he expects a push soon to abandon the requirement that criminal verdicts be unanimous. The people pushing these efforts simply don't trust juries.
Some recent changes are large enough that they are triggering constitutional challenges.
The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing a case that challenges the tendency of judges to override juries. The high court has agreed to review another case testing the legality of laws in 16 states, including Texas, that shift certain factual questions, such as a criminal defendant's motives, away from juries to judges. The usual role of judges in trials is to decide how the law applies. The Supreme Court also will rule this year on whether an Alabama woman can be held to a binding-arbitration clause included in papers she signed when she bought a mobile home in 1994. The clause has prevented her from suing over an insurance issue related to the transaction.