jury
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 315 U.S. 60 - Glasser v. United States · 1942Most cited · 26,381 citing opinions
cross-section requirement
the proper functioning of the jury system, and, indeed, our democracy itself, requires that the jury be a truly representative of the community, and not the organ of any special group or class
How the Supreme Court has restated “jury”
Each Supreme Court definition of “jury,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “jury”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “jury” — 28,538 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1942–1972
That kind of discrimination contravenes the very idea of a jury—'a body truly representative of the community,' composed of 'the peers or equals of the person whose rights it is selected or summoned to determine; that is, of his neighbors, fellows, associates, persons having the same legal status in society as that which he holds.
the essential feature of a jury obviously lies in the interposition between the accused and his accuser of the commonsense judgment of a group of laymen, and a jury will come to such a judgment as long as it consists of a group of laymen representative of a cross section of the community who have the duty and the opportunity to deliberate, free from outside attempts at intimidation, on the question of a defendant's guilt
Sixth Amendment essential feature