Things that go Bump in the Night – Legal Addition: Not so Fast on Jury Trials
Not so fast, Russ. Jury trials have been a staple of Anglo-American jurisprudence because they are a way – but not the exclusive way -- to achieve justice. There is a long tradition of cases decided by judges alone, too. You are much too quick to assume that parties and their counsel are opting for alternative methods of dispute resolution because they value finality over principle. No one ever said that a jury trial is the only way to achieve a fair resolution of a dispute. And we all know that juries sometimes let their biases sway them, so that all
The Vanishing Jury Trial
Since the founding of our republic, Americans have lived with confidence that their disputes will be judged fairly by a jury of their peers. But in recent years, the American civil jury has become an endangered species. The number of civil jury cases tried in federal courts dropped from 3,206 in 2001 to 1,534 in 2019. During that same time frame, civil jury trials in Tennessee state courts dropped from 791 to only 226. Most litigants, deterred by the high cost and slow pace of litigation, choose to resolve their cases outside of court. In 2019, only 0.7% of federal civil cases