JUROR (Lat. juro, to swear). A man who is sworn or affirmed to serve on a jury.
Any person selected and summoned ac cording to law to serve in that capacity, whether the jury has been actually impanel led and sworn or not. State v. McCrystol, 43 La. Ann. 907, 9 South. 922.
JURY (Lat. jurata, sworn). A body of men who are sworn to declare the facts of a case as they are proven from the evidence placed before them.
The term "jury," as used in the consti tution, means twelve competent men, dis interested and impartial, not of kin nor per sonal dependents of either of the parties, having their homes within the jurisdictional limits of the court, drawn and elected by officers free from all bias in favor of or against either party ; duly empanelled, and sworn to render a true verdict, according to the law and the evidence; State v. McClear, 11 Nev. 39.
In the trial by jury, the right of which is secured by the VIIth Amendment, both the court and the jury are essential factors; Slocum v. Ins. Co., 228 U. S. 364, 33 Sup. Ct. 523, 57 L. Ed. 879.
The beet theory regards the jury system as baying been derived from Normandy, where, as in the rest of France, it had existed since its establishment un der the Carlovingian kings. It made its appearance in England soon after the Norman Conquest. No trace of it Is to be found in Anglo-Saxon times, nor was it, as is often supposed, established by Magna Charta ; 10 Harv. L. Rev. 150, by J. E. R. Stephens. The same writer finds the idea of una nimity re-established in the time of Edward IV., a majority verdict having previously sufficed ; in the Year Books of 23 Edward III. is the first in dication of the jury deciding on evidence produced before them in addition to their own knowledge. Early in the reign of Henry IV. evidence was re quired to be given at the bar of the court, and the modern practice or method of jury trials had its origin ; 44. 159.
Prof. J. B. Thayer finds the origin of the jury in the Frankish inquisition; it existed in Normandy and went thence to England in the eleventh cen tury; 5 Harv. L. Rev. 249. The use of a jury both for civil and criminal cases is mentioned for the first time in English statute law in the Constitu tions of Clarendon ; id. 156. ' The origin of trial by jury is said by another writer to be rather French than English, rather royal than popular, rather a livery of conquest than a badge of freedom. Originally juries were
called in, not to hear, but to give, evidence. They were the neighbors of the parties and were pre sumed to know when they came into court the facts about which they were to testify. They were chosen by the sheriff to represent the-neighborhood. The verdict was the sworn testimony of the country side. By slow degress the jury acquired a new character. Sometimes when the jurors knew noth ing of the facts, witnesses who did know the facts would be called in to supply the requisite informa tion. They became more and more dependent on the evidence given in their presence by those wit nesses who were summoned by the parties. In the fifteenth century• the change had taken place, though in yet later days a man who had been sum moned as a juror and sought to escape on the ground that he already knew something of the facts, might be told that he had given a very good reason for hie being placed in the jury box. It may well be said therefore that trial by jury, though it had its roots in the Frankish inquest, grew up on Eng lish soil ; 1 Social England 255, 290. So also I Poll. & Maiti. 117-121.
Another writer finds its foundation in Norman in stitutions and its establishment by positive legisla tion in the time of Henry II. Lesser, Hirt. of Jury Syst. 172.
In an interesting discussion of the "Administra tion of the Criminal Law," by W. H. Taft, 15 Yale L. J. I (1905), it is stated that since 1848 "the trial by jury in criminal cases was adopted in France, in Belgium, in Germany, in Norway and Sweden, in Spain, in Italy, and Russia, except in trials for political offences, and is now in use in those coun tries." He also considers that, although adopted in Porto Rico, it has been a failure there, and that its adoption in the Philippines would be unwise, adding that "it is by no means clear that in our own jurisprudence trial by jury in civil cases it an unmixed good." The inapplicability of the jury system and also of what are usually ternied the constitutional guarantees (all of which except trial by jury were extended to them by President Mc Kinley) to such a country is argued at some length and with vigor.