Guest Editorial

The right to trial by jury developed over centuries in England beginning with Viking raiders. Trial by jury was a concession the English barons extracted from King John in 1215 in the Magna Carta.

On July 4, 1776, members of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, declaring that the United States of America was dissolving its “political bands” with Great Britain because King George III had denied the colonists their rights as British citizens, including “in many cases, the benefits of trial by jury.” Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying at the time that: “We must, in...