Opinion ID: 2820053
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: the sixth amendment guarantees a sworn jury

Text: The first question—one that the majority does not address—is whether the trial court committed an error in failing to properly swear the jury. The prosecution concedes that the trial court erred by failing to give the oath required by court rule and statute. 7 However, the basis of defendant’s argument is that the trial court’s error was 5 Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted; first alteration in original). 6 The majority’s reference to the constitutional avoidance doctrine to justify skipping over the first three prongs of the plain error test in this case is misplaced. Ante at 7 n 4. As explained below, the fact that an error is constitutional and structural has an undeniable effect on the analysis under the fourth Carines prong. This important nuance in the legal analysis is lost by avoiding the first three prongs simply because the ultimate result might be the same. More importantly, when the constitutional analysis would yield a different, more favorable result for the defendant, as I find it does in this case, the constitutional avoidance doctrine has no application. 7 See MCR 2.511(H)(1); MCL 768.14. 3 constitutional in nature, as evidenced by his citation of the Court of Appeals’ decision in People v Allan 8 and his contention that the error in this case was structural. In Allan, 9 the Court of Appeals relied on an earlier Court of Appeals case, People v Pribble, which held that “[t]he oath is designed to protect the fundamental right of trial by an impartial jury.” 10 Neither Pribble nor Allan provided an extended constitutional analysis, but they present an important issue not yet squarely addressed by this Court or the United States Supreme Court: whether the juror’s oath is constitutionally required as part of the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee to a trial by jury. 11 The language of the Sixth Amendment reads, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury . . . .” 12 In interpreting the constitutional phrase “trial by jury,” the guiding principle is “to give the text the meaning it was understood to have at the time of its adoption by the people.” 13 8 People v Allan, 299 Mich App 205; 829 NW2d 319 (2013). 9 Id. at 211, 213-215. 10 People v Pribble, 72 Mich App 219, 224; 249 NW2d 363 (1976). 11 In the one United States Supreme Court decision that even remotely dealt with the issue of unsworn jurors, Baldwin v Kansas, 129 US 52, 56; 9 S Ct 193; 32 L Ed 640 (1889), the Court found that “no Federal question is presented . . . of which this court can take jurisdiction” because the defendant had failed to properly preserve the claim of error at trial, as required by a federal statute in effect at that time. 12 US Const, Am VI; see also Duncan v Louisiana, 391 US 145; 88 S Ct 1444; 20 L Ed 2d 491(1968) (incorporating the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial against the states under the Fourteenth Amendment); see also Const 1963, art 1, § 20. 13 Boumediene v Bush, 553 US 723, 843; 128 S Ct 2229; 171 L Ed 2d 41 (2008) (Scalia, J., dissenting), citing Crawford v Washington, 541 US 36, 54; 124 S Ct 1354; 158 L Ed 2d 177 (2004). 4 The language of the Constitution is the primary indicator of that understanding. 14 When interpreting the Constitution, we presume that “its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” 15 Our interpretation of the constitutional text “is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.” 16 This is especially so for the right to trial by jury because it is a basic fact of our constitutional heritage that the ratification of the Sixth Amendment marked the preservation of a long-cherished institution born of English common law. 17 For as long as the institution we know as “trial by jury” has existed, juries have been sworn. Oaths were already a deeply embedded custom in civic society when the jury trial emerged as the accepted mode of criminal trial. 18 When that happened, “[the 14 See, e.g., Gibbons v Ogden, 22 US (9 Wheat) 1, 188; 6 L Ed 23 (1824) (“[T]he enlightened patriots who framed our constitution, and the people who adopted it, must be understood to have employed words in their natural sense, and to have intended what they have said.”). 15 Dist of Columbia v Heller, 554 US 570, 576; 128 S Ct 2783; 171 L Ed 2d 637 (2008) (quotation marks and citation omitted). 16 Smith v Alabama, 124 US 465, 478; 8 S Ct 564; 31 L Ed 508 (1888). 17 Apprendi v New Jersey, 530 US 466, 477; 120 S Ct 2348; 147 L Ed 2d 435 (2000) (“[T]he historical foundation for our recognition of [the constitutional protections of the Sixth Amendment] extends down centuries into the common law.”); Gannett Co, Inc v DePasquale, 443 US 368, 385; 99 S Ct 2898; 61 L Ed 2d 608 (1979) (“The common-law right to a jury trial . . . is explicitly embodied in the Sixth . . . Amendment[].”). 18 Silving, The Oath: I, 68 Yale L J 1329, 1330 (1959) (“The familiar oath of the presentday courtroom has been traced to a pre-religious, indeed, pre-animistic period of culture.”); see also, generally, White, Oaths in Judicial Proceedings and Their Effect upon the Competency of Witnesses, 51 Am L Reg 373 (1903). 5 oath] became an integral part of the jury trial and by the earliest records both jurors and witnesses were sworn.” 19 Indeed, from the inception of the jury trial, “[i]t was the power of the oath which decided the case . . . .” 20 By the time Sir William Blackstone wrote his Commentaries on the Laws of England in the mid-eighteenth century, the role of the oath had become so firmly ensconced in the concept of the jury that the body known as “the jury” did not exist until its members swore an oath: When a sufficient number of persons impaneled, or talesmen, appear, they are then separately sworn, well and truly to try the issue between the parties, and a true verdict to give according to the evidence, and hence they are denominated the jury, jurata and jurors, [namely] juratores.[21] The essence of the jury is, and always has been, the swearing of the oath. 22 This basic historical fact finds compelling support in the etymological roots of the word “jury,” which can be traced back to the French words “juré” and “jurée” and the Latin 19 Oaths in Judicial Proceedings, 51 Am L Reg at 386. 20 The Oath: I, 68 Yale L J at 1365; see also Thayer, “Law and Fact” in Jury Trials, 4 Harv L Rev 147, 156-157 (1890) (describing the emergence of trial by jury and stating that “it was the jury’s oath, or rather their verdict, that ‘tried’ the case”). 21 3 Blackstone, p  (emphasis added; first italics in original). 22 The Oath: I, 68 Yale L J at 1361 (“Even that distinctive English feature—the jury trial—grew out of Germanic oath practices.”); 1 Pollock & Maitland, The History of English Law (2d ed) (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1968), bk I, ch VI, p 138 (“The essence of the jury . . . seems to be this : a body of neighbors is summoned by some public officer to give upon oath a true answer to some question.”) (emphasis added); Forsythe, History of Trial by Jury (2d ed) (Jersey City: Frederick D. Linn & Company, 1875), pp 6-7 (“One important feature of the institution is by no means peculiar to it. I mean the fact that it is a sworn tribunal—that its members decide under the solemn sanction of an oath.”). 6 word “jurare,” which mean “sworn,” “oath,” and “to swear,” respectively. 23 The English ancestor of our “jury” was called “the jurata,” 24 which itself was defined as “[a] jury of twelve men sworn.” 25 Furthermore, at the time our Constitution was written, “jury” was defined as “a company of men, as twenty-four, or twelve, sworn to deliver a truth upon such evidence as shall be delivered them touching the matter in question.” 26 Nearly every definition of “jury” since then includes reference to swearing an oath. 27 In other 23 The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1974), p 500; Cassell’s Latin Dictionary (1968), pp 331, 846 (rendering it as “iurare”); 1 Heath’s Standard French and English Dictionary: French—English (London: D.C. Heath & Company, 1963), p 478. And the more distant etymological associates of “jury” include “jurat,” which means “[a] person under oath,” 9 The Anglo-American Encyclopedia and Dictionary (New York: J. A. Hill & Company, 1904), p 2417, and “juratory,” which means “comprising an oath,” Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1785). 24 Thayer, The Jury and Its Development, 5 Harv L Rev 249, 259 (1892). 25 2 Bouvier’s Law Dictionary (Rawle’s rev, 1897), p 56 (emphasis added). 26 Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1785) (emphasis added); see also Bailey, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (20th ed, 1763) (defining “jury” as “[in Common Law] a Company of twenty-four or twelve Men, sworn to inquire of the Matter of Fact, and declare the Truth upon such evidence as shall be given to them, relating to the Matter of Fact”) (bracketing in original; emphasis added); Potts, A Compendious Law Dictionary (1803), p 406 (defining “jury” as “a certain number of persons sworn to enquire of and try some matter of fact, and to declare the truth upon such evidence as shall be laid before them”) (emphasis added). 27 See, e.g., Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (2001) (defining “jury” as “a group of persons sworn to render a verdict or true answer on a question or questions submitted to them, esp. such a group selected by law and sworn to examine the evidence in a case and render a verdict to a court”) (emphasis added); The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1974) (“[A] company of men sworn to give a verdict.”) (emphasis added); Black’s Law Dictionary (4th ed) (“A certain number of men, selected according to law, and sworn (jurati) to inquire of certain matters of fact, and declare the truth upon evidence to be laid before them.”); Funk and Wagnalls Practical Standard Dictionary of the English Language (Chicago: J. G. Ferguson & Associates, 1945), p 628 (“A body of persons (usually twelve) legally qualified and summoned to serve on a judicial tribunal, 7 words, the oath was, and has always been, a defining criterion of “jury.” 28 In light of this deep etymological pedigree, it seems quite implausible that the Framers, who lived in a time in which society placed great emphasis on oaths, 29 intended anything other than a sworn jury when they drafted the Sixth Amendment. The term “jury” in the Sixth Amendment naturally referred to a “sworn” jury; adding the descriptor “sworn” would have seemed redundant. That the Framers understood the word “jury” to necessarily include a requirement that the decision-making body swear an oath finds support in a contextual reading of the Constitution, particularly the provision granting the Senate the power to try all impeachments. 30 An early version of Article I, § 3 simply authorized the Senate to try all impeachments. 31 However, it was later revised to explicitly state that “every member shall be on oath[.]” 32 Elucidating the oath requirement in his Commentaries on the