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ID: 099570

Democracy’s free school: Tocqueville and Lieber on the value of the Jury / Dzur, Albert W

Dzur, Albert W	Journal Article
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2010.

Summary/Abstract

This essay discusses the jury's value in American democracy by examining Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of the jury as a free school for the public. His account of jury socialization, which stressed lay deference to judges and trust in professional knowledge, was one side of a complex set of ideas about trust and authority in American political thought. Tocqueville's contemporary Francis Lieber held juries to have important competencies and to be ambivalent rather than deferential regarding court professionals. The nineteenth-century courtroom exhibited such ambivalence and was marked by institutional conflict involving increasing professional authority demanded by the bench and populist counter-pressures. Assessing the value of the jury today may require some of the conceptual tools Tocqueville offers, but must also renew an appreciation of the jury as a site that utilizes already existing juridical capabilities of lay people and thus re-conceive the relationship between lay people and court professionals.

Key Words

Tocqueville ; Lieber ; Jury ; Professionals ; Public School ; Iran - Democracy - 1941-1953

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ID: 160550

Justifying the Jury: reconciling justice, equality, and democracy / Schwartzberg, Melissa

MELISSA SCHWARTZBERG	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

The jury is a paradigmatic example of a democratic institution that may be justified strictly on instrumental and epistemic grounds: its ability to yield just outcomes. Yet why should we have confidence in its ability? The jury's reliability derives from the jurors’ status as local experts (hierarchical equality), as well as near-universal eligibility and selection by lot (horizontal equality): This dual egalitarianism is a condition of the jury's epistemic value. Yet ordinary citizens thereby acquire an interest in epistemic respect or recognition of their presumptively equal competence to judge. The instrumental value of the jury and intrinsic (respect-based) value of jury service may thus be reconciled; although trade-offs between just verdicts and respectful treatment are possible, the jury's ability to attain just verdicts may be improved by reforms generated by concerns about respectful treatment of jurors. This framework sheds light on the justification of democratic institutions more generally.

Key Words

Equality ; Democracy ; Jury ; Reconciling Justice

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