I’ve always been confused by this.
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Why would you want a bunch of randoms to decide your fate, and not the actual judge with a law degree and years of experience?
Why do those people have more power than the judge? They can decide anything they want and the judge is basically just the guy who signs and does the paperwork.
In: 2634
The jury actually has a very old origin. Back in the Middle Ages in Europe, the idea of using science and reason to investigate a crime didn’t exist. Instead, there were a variety of ways people would ask God (or the gods) to judge cases. Sometimes this was trial by combat (God would make sure the innocent person won), or trial by fire (God would make a guilty man’s burn wounds fester), and so on.
Another method was to make some people swear that the accused was innocent – the idea was that God wouldn’t let you swear a formulaic oath without stuttering or whatever unless you spoke the truth. This was called “compurgation”
For unclear reasons, it was common to have eleven or twelve people of the same status as the accused make this oath.
Modern juries are supposed to decide guilt or innocence based on evidence and reason, but the idea of twelve people of the same social status as the accused swearing an oath that the person is guilty or innocent is derived directly from this ancient system of justice.
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