Juro

In Spanish law. A certain pension granted by the king on the public revenues, and more especially on the salt works, by favor, either in consideration of meritorious services, or in return for money loaned the government, or obtained by it through indemnity, either in perpetuity or as an annuity. JUROR (Lat. juro, to swear). A man who is sworn or affirmed to serve on a jury. JURY (Lat. jurata, sworn).

In practice

A body of men who are sworn to declare the facts of a case as they are delivered from the evidence placed before them. It is applied loosely to a number of bodies, as coroners' juries, etc. As applied to petit juries, its most common use, the full number of twelve men is essential to a common-law jury.

18 N. Y. 128.

The origin of this venerable institution of the common law is lost in the obscurity of the middle ages. Antiquarians trace it back to an early period of English history; but, if known to the Saxons, it must have existed in a very crude form, and may have been derived to them from the mode of administering justice by the peers of litigant parties, under the feudal institutions of France, Germany, and the other northern nations of Europe. The ancient ordeals of red-hot iron and boiling water, practiced by the Anglo- Saxons to test the iimocence of a party accused of crime, gradually gave way to the wager of battle, in the days of the Normans; while this latter mode of trial disappeared in civil cases in the thirteenth century, when Henry II. introduced into the assizes a trial by jury. It is referred to in Magna, Charta as an institution existing in England at that time, and its subsequent history is well known.

See "Grand Assize"; 3 Bl. Comm. 349; 1 Reeve, Hist. Eng. Law, 23, 84; Glanv. c, 9; Bracton, 155.

A jury de medietate linguae is one composed half of aliens and half of denizens. Such juries might formerly be claimed, both in civil and criminal cases, where the party claiming the privilege was an alien born, by virtue of 28 Edw. III. c.

13. And see 8 Hen. VI. c. 29; 3 Geo. IIL c.

25, by which latter statute the right is thought to be taken away in civil cases.

See 3 Sharswood, Bl. Comm. 360; 4 Sharswood, Bl. Comm. 352.

A provision of a similar nature, providing for a jury one-half of the nationality of the party claiming the privilege, where he is a foreigner, exists in some of the states of the United States. A grand jury is one organized for certain preliminary purposes. See "Grand Jury." A petit jury is a jury who try the question in issue, and pass finally upon the truth of the facts in dispute. The term "jury" is ordinarily applied to this body distinctively. A common jury is one drawn in the usual manner. A special or strucik jury is one selected by the assistanoe of the parties. This is granted in some cases upon motion and cause shown, under various local provislons.

See 33 Eng. Law & Eq. 406.

The freeholders to the prothonotary or proper officer. The attorneys of the respective parties, being present, strike oflf each twelve names, and from the remaining twenty-four the jury is selected. A similar course _ is pursued in those states where such juries are allowed.

See 3 Sharswood, Bl. Comm. 857.