Prerequisite: None

Exam Type: No Exam

This seminar traces the jury’s arc from its emergence in the vacuum left by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, when the Church abandoned the ordeal as a mode of proof, to its contested role in America’s constitutional democracy. We begin with Solomon’s judgment and Bracton’s counsel to the sovereign (quoted above), move through Magna Carta’s promise of peer participation in sovereignty, and follow the jury’s evolving function as the people’s voice in law: from the Declaration’s “all men created equal,” through the Constitution’s protections of liberty by grand and petit jury, to the struggles over slavery, commerce, race, and civil war that shaped American legal institutions.

Along the way we confront the jury’s corruption and contraction — nullification, plea bargaining, waivers, death qualification — and examine how judicial choices shifted power from the people to the executive. Our discussion will take us through episodes of racial injustice, political repression, and civil rights struggle, culminating in a reflection on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Students will be invited to write papers engaging the central question with which we conclude: Where do we stand, as individuals, in light of our national history?

Note: Professor Nesson’s prior Jury offerings (Trial by Jury, JuryX Workshop, Justice for Lawyers, and Jury Deliberation in the Age of AI) substantially overlap with this new seminar, so students who have completed his prior Jury offerings will not be eligible to enroll for credit.