미국 민사배심의 현황에 대한 분석과 시사점

This paper analyzes the American civil jury system. The American civil jury is a living institution that has played a crucial part in American democracy for more than two hundred years. The American civil jury system is unique because its entrenched in the constitutional. However, the civil jury has been the subject of sharp attack on grounds of its supposed incompetence and bias. Some critics argue that the complexity of today’s civil disputes is high and that a group of randomly chosen citizens is unlikely to fully understand the evidentiary and legal issues in such cases. This paper traces the decline in the portion of cases that are terminated by trial and the decline in the absolute number of trials in various American judicial data. The portion of federal civil cases resolved by trial fell from 11.5 percent in 1962 to 1.8 percent in 2002. The phenomenon is not confined to the federal courts. There are declines of civil trials in the state courts where the great majority of trials occur. Despite this decline remain to be explored, American civil jury is the best model for citizen participation to civil process.