A Brief History of the Criminal Jury in the United States

Harold Hyman and Catherine Tarrant wrote in 1975 that "research into American jury history has been far from adequate, systematic, or synthetic ....The result is that any attempt to survey jury history... is necessarily impressionistic, discursive, and tentative."These authors concluded, "Few areas of legal history need attention more."Hyman and Tarrant, American Trial Jury History at 24 (cited in note 3).See also Murrin, Magistrates, Sinners, and a Precarious Liberty at 153 (cited in note 2) ("[The jury] has almost completely eluded sustained scholarly attention.