In Praise of the Jury Trial: A Review of Robert P. Burns' The Death of the American Trial

Abstract

This essay reviews Robert Burns’ The Death of the American Trial. That book defends the jury trial against its critics and bemoans its demise by cataloguing the social functions the trial serves. These functions include individualizing justice, preventing elite dominance of the courts, “de-thinging” persons, empowering the weak, and protecting free speech. This essay explores how the rise of computer technologies and modern changes in the media make the trial's social functions even more important than Burns suggests.