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What is causing the disappearance of jury trials in the U. S.?
What is causing the disappearance of jury trials in the U. S.?
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i think the most profound example is in
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civil jury trials
00:08
the seventh amendment absolutely
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guarantees
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a trial in matters involving more than
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i think it’s fifty dollars whatever it
00:18
was peckin in uh
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1791 when they passed the bill of rights
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here’s what’s happened over the years
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the seventh amendment says
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not only do you get a jury trial a trial
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by a
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jury of your peers but the fact that the
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fact findings they make
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except in the rarest of circumstances
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cannot be upset
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so what the court has done and i know
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there’s lots of reasons including
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mediation arbitration
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and other things that i think are not uh
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i call it offloading justice the finest
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way to resolve differences in my mind
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is through a jury trial then comes a
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judge trial
01:00
but this this business of of outsourcing
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justice
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is it’s just not what the
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what the founders intended so what
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they’ve done
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over the years starting with a
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triumvirate of cases in 1986
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that breathed life into summary judgment
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there were warnings then
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justice brennan in this one of the
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famous three cases the liberty lobby
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case
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warned that if we breathe this kind of
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life into summary judgment
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we’re going to have paper trials at the
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end of discovery in every case
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and that’s what’s happened discovery has
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become a profit center
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and summary judgment which is the key
01:39
here to what’s happened to jury trials
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at least
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from the supreme court vantage point
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jury trials
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trials in general have shifted this fact
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finding that juries were supposed to do
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to judges
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the best example for me is dalbert and
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kumo tyre where
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experts testimony is subjected to a
01:59
gateway they call it
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a gateway determination by the district
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judge
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and most of the states have followed it
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and what that does was shift the
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responsibility
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really for determining the credibility
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when
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is what it comes down to of an expert’s
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testimony
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the basis for his testimony the test
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that he ran the methodology etc
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now that’s a decision as justice
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rehnquist pointed out
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in his dissent from dalbert
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that’s a decision that was left to
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george for 200 years
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is this expert persuasive does this
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expert tell me something i don’t know
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and weighing that that was the principle
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the principal um function of the jury
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to weigh the evidence and instead of
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overturning factual findings the supreme
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court with help of liberals like breyer
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justice pryor have moved the
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fact-finding process to judges
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and away from jurors that’s not the way
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the court was supposed to be set up
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they call it uh you know they
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they’ve also done it at the beginning of
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the trial they’ve created procedural
03:10
hurdles along the way
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that have undermined the seventh amendment
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Houston, TX commercial litigation attorney David Berg explains what is causing the disappearance of jury trials in the U.S.
