Opinion ID: 1925281
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The English Common Law of Jury Trials

Text: To better understand the status of criminal jury trials at the time of the Revolution, we examine briefly the evolution of that institution in common law England. The earliest record of a primordial form of the criminal jury trial in English common law history may be attributed to the Saxon king, Ethelred the Unready (978-1013, 1014-16). Under Ethelred's law, 12 elders of a local community would be accompanied by a sheriff to swear on a religious relic and swear not to accuse an innocent man of a crime. MAXIMUS A. LESSER, THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE JURY SYSTEM 134 (1894); WILLIAM FORSYTH, HISTORY OF TRIAL BY JURY 57 (2d ed. 1875). This form of accusation and conviction was replaced by the frank-pledge system, instituted by the Normans following their Conquest in 1066, which held every member of a community responsible for the conduct of his neighbors. LESSER, supra at 135-36 (citing FORSYTH, supra at 161). This system compelled neighbors to bring to justice the criminal element in their communities. Id. This led to another mode of trial by accusers making oaths, called voraths, against a defendant. [21] JOHN PROFFATT, A TREATISE ON TRIAL BY JURY 25-26 (1877). A defendant would typically undergo an ordeal [22] or, under Norman rule, trial by combat. [23] LESSER, supra at 136 (citing FORSYTH, supra at 194). Dissatisfaction with this rumor-driven, perilous process lead to reforms in the following centuries. The criminal jury trial began to assume a form more recognizable to us under the reign of King Henry II. Among Henry II's innovations was his Assize of Clarendon, decreed in 1166, which brought under the jurisdiction of the royal courts serious crimes and felonies identified by an inquest, or a type of grand jury, of 16 men gathered from the vicinage. [24] LEONARD W. LEVY, THE PALLADIUM OF JUSTICE: ORIGINS OF TRIAL BY JURY 11 (1999). These jurors were charged with the responsibility of speaking for the neighborhood as to their suspicions and accusations of criminal activity. Id. Once identified by this sworn jury, the defendant was faced with one of several possible ordeals. Id. This method of reaching a verdict was beginning to replace the older Saxon and Norman procedures of taking oaths of innocence and trial by battle. 2 FREDERICK POLLOCK & FREDERIC WILLIAM MAITLAND, THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW 598-603 (1898). Steadily, advancements in the realm of civil trials under Henry II lead to the petit jury verdict's replacement of the ordeal as the final arbiter of criminal guilt or innocence. Contemporaneous with the Assize of Clarendon was the establishment of the assizes of novel disseisin (recent dispossession), mort d'ancestor (death of an ancestor), and darrein presentment (last presentment), which provided for final jury verdicts bearing on various issues of land possession. LEVY, supra at 13-14. The jurors in these cases were drawn from the vicinity and resolved the disputes before them based upon their knowledge of the facts at issue. Id. In 1179, Henry II promulgated the Grand Assize, a form of appeal from civil jury verdicts as to rightful possession of land, which called for yet another jury. Id. at 14. This jury was selected by the sheriff, who nominated 4 knights to complete the jury with 12 other knights hailing from the same neighborhood as situs of the land in question. Id. Again, these jurors relied on their knowledge of the facts to reach a decision. Id. at 14-15. With the advent of the Magna Carta in 1215, the nobles of England secured for themselves, [25] in Article 39 of the Great Charter, [26] the right to a jury verdict in lieu of the more perilous methods of determining guilt or innocence. LESSER, supra at 142-43. Until that time, a petit jury verdict was only available for a price as a dispensation from the Crown. [27] Id. Two legal authorities of good repute from the period, Henry de Bracton and the Fleta, indicated that criminal jury trials had become typical by the end of the 13th century. [28] Id. at 143; see supra note 25. This may have been attributable in large measure to the abolition of the trial by ordeal around 1215, see supra note 22, which left judges with few desirable alternatives for trying the guilt of defendants. LESSER, supra at 145. Beginning in the 1300s, the petit and grand juries finally emerged as bodies of distinct jurors. In 1352, King Edward III agreed to a statute empowering defendants to challenge petit jurors because of their service on the grand jury that indicted the defendant. LEVY, supra at 22. Another development in the ancient jury trial, making it resemble closer our modern institution, was the move away during the reign of King Henry III from the jurors as witnesses, which became normal practice by the mid-15th century. [29] The qualifications for jury service remained principally unchanged over the many centuries of the common law's development. A juror was required to be a land-owning (freeholder, or freeman) [30] male [31] possessing land and chattel of a specified value who dwelled in the general area from which the disputed question arose. [32] 3 BLACKSTONE, supra at ; GILES DUNCOMBE, TRIALS PER PAIS, OR THE LAW OF ENGLAND CONCERNING JURIES BY NISI PRIUS, & C. 7, 85-88, 103, 123 (6th ed. 1718). Jurors also had to be lawful, that is, not outlawed for some illegal act previously done. DUNCOMBE, supra at 85; 3 BLACKSTONE, supra at -64. Jurors could also be challenged for possible partiality, insufficient age, and occupation as a clergymen or member of Parliament. 3 BLACKSTONE, supra at , 363, 364. In summary, the practice of the criminal jury trial in English common law at the time of the Revolution stood as follows. A grand jury was assembled to indict a defendant based upon eye-witness testimony and other evidence. Then, a petit jury of 12 free, land-holding, lawful men worth a certain amount of money from the general area of the situs of the crime determined the correctness of the indictment based on testimony from witnesses and instructions of law from judge. As its language indicates, Article 5(a)(1) of the Declaration of Rights avails Marylanders of the common law of England as it existed at the time Maryland declared its independence. [33] Id., State v. Canova, 278 Md. 483, 486, 365 A.2d 988, 990 (1976). We, however, have made clear in our cases, as does Article 5(a)(1) itself, that this imported common law is subject to change and repeal by appellate courts and the Legislature. Stearman v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 381 Md. 436, 454, 849 A.2d 539, 550 (2004); Spitzinger v. State, 340 Md. 114, 129, 665 A.2d 685, 692 (1995); Miles Laboratories, Inc. Cutter Laboratories Div. v. Doe, 315 Md. 704, 724, 556 A.2d 1107 1117 (1989); Jones v. State, 303 Md. 323 n. 10, 337 493 A.2d 1062, 1069 n. 10 (1985) (The common law rule may, within constitutional constraints, be changed or modified by legislative enactment or judicial decision where it is found to be a vestige of the past, no longer suitable to the circumstances of our people.); Lutz v. State, 167 Md. 12, 15, 172 A. 354, 356 (1934); Gladden v. State, 273 Md. 383, 389, 330 A.2d 176, 180 (1974); Denison v. Denison, 35 Md. 361, 378 (1872); Coomes v. Clements, 4 H. & J. 480, 481 (1819). It is the province of this and other courts to adjudge whether the common law of England at the time of the Revolution remains a valid portion of the law of Maryland. Ireland v. State, 310 Md. 328, 331, 529 A.2d 365, 366 (1987) (The determination of the nature of the common law as it existed in England in 1776, and as it then prevailed in Maryland either practically or potentially, and the determination of what part of that common law is consistent with the spirit of Maryland's Constitution and her political institutions, are to be made by this Court.); Gilbert v. Findlay College, 195 Md. 508, 513, 74 A.2d 36, 38 (1950). The common law also may be abrogated by a statute or statutory scheme when the Legislature's act addresses the whole subject matter [34] on which the common law spoke or the common law and the legislative enactments may not co-exist independently. Stearman, 381 Md. at 454, 849 A.2d at 550 (quoting State ex rel. Sonner v. Shearin, 272 Md. 502, 510, 325 A.2d 573, 578 (1974)) (When the common law and a statute collide, the statute, if constitutional, controls.); Robinson v. State, 353 Md. 683, 693, 728 A.2d 698, 702-03 (1999) (citing Lutz v. State, 167 Md. at 15, 172 A. at 356) (Where a statute and the common law are in conflict, or where a statute deals with an entire subject-matter, the rule is otherwise, and the statute is generally construed as abrogating the common law as to that subject.); Hitchcock v. State, 213 Md. 273, 279, 131 A.2d 714, 716 (1957) (Where the Legislature undertakes to deal with the whole subject matter, there is an exception to the general rule that repeal by implication is not favored. . . .); Watkins v. State, 42 Md.App. 349, 353-54, 400 A.2d 464, 467 (1979). Thus, notwithstanding whatever merit may inhere in Owens's English common law argument, if the Maryland statutory scheme prescribing the qualifications for jury service overbears completely the common law as it existed at the time of the Revolution, Article 5(a)(1) of the Maryland Declaration of Rights offers no support for Owens's argument for a constitutional right to a jury composed of U.S. citizens. We examine that statutory scheme.