Editing Jury trial (section)

==Role==
{{Main article|Jury#Role}}
In most common law jurisdictions, the jury is responsible for finding the facts of the case, while the judge determines the law. These "peers of the accused" are responsible for listening to a dispute, evaluating the evidence presented, deciding on the facts, and making a decision in accordance with the rules of law and their [[jury instructions]]. Typically, the jury only judges a verdict of guilty or not guilty, but the actual penalty is set by the judge.

===Various verdicts===
====Russia====
Following the [[judicial reform of Alexander II]] in [[Russian Empire|Russia]], unlike in modern jury trials, jurors decided not only whether the defendant was guilty or not guilty, but they had a third choice: "Guilty, but not to be punished", since [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] believed that [[justice]] without [[morality]] was wrong.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}}

====France====
In [[France]] and some countries organized in the same fashion, the jury and several professional judges sit together to determine guilt first. Then, if guilt is determined, they decide the appropriate penalty.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Protection of the Accused in French Criminal Procedure |first=Robert |last=Vouin |journal=International and Comparative Law Quarterly |volume=5 |issue=2 |year=1956 |pages=157–173 |doi=10.1093/iclqaj/5.2.157}}</ref>{{Update inline|date=July 2024|reason=Source is from 1956}}

===Bench trials===
Some jurisdictions with jury trials allow the defendant to waive their right to a jury trial, thus leading to a [[bench trial]]. Jury trials tend to occur only when a crime is considered serious. In some jurisdictions, such as France and [[Brazil]], jury trials are reserved, and compulsory, for the most severe crimes and are not available for civil cases. In Brazil, trials by jury are applied in cases of voluntary crimes against life, such as first and second degree murder, [[forced abortion]] and instigation of suicide, even if only attempted. 
In others, jury trials are only available for criminal cases and very specific civil cases ([[malicious prosecution]], civil [[fraud]] and [[false imprisonment]]).{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}}

In the [[United States]], jury trials are available in both civil and criminal cases. In [[Canada]], an individual charged with an indictable offence may elect to be tried by a judge alone in a provincial court, by judge alone in a superior court, or by judge and jury in a superior court; summary offences cannot be tried by jury. In [[England and Wales]], offences are classified as summary, indictable, or either way; jury trials are not available for summary offences (using instead a summary proceeding with a panel of three lay magistrates or a district judge sitting alone), unless they are tried alongside indictable or either way offences that are themselves tried by jury, but the defendant has a right to demand a jury trial for either way offences. The situation is similar in Scotland; whereas in Northern Ireland even summary offences carry a right to jury trial, with some exceptions.<ref>Magistrates' Courts (Northern Ireland) Order 1981, [https://www.legislation.gov.uk/nisi/1981/1675/article/29 art. 29]</ref>

In the United States, because jury trials tend to be high profile, the general public tends to overestimate the frequency of jury trials. Approximately 150,000 jury trials are conducted in state courts annually,<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=Fundamentals of Criminal Justice: A Sociological View|author1=Barkan, S.|author2=Bryjak, G.|date=2011|publisher=Jones & Bartlett Learning|isbn=9780763754242|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZHAfpoCO5yMC|access-date=2015-06-13}}</ref> and an additional 5,000 jury trials are conducted in federal courts. Two-thirds of jury trials are criminal trials, while one-third are civil and "other" (e.g., family, municipal ordinance, traffic). Nevertheless, the vast majority of criminal cases are settled by [[plea bargain]],<ref name=clr79>Newman, D. (1966) ''Conviction: The Determination of Guilt or Innocence without Trial 3''. Ref. in {{cite journal
| last1        = Alschuler
| first1       = Albert W.
| author-link1  = Albert W. Alschuler
|date=January 1979
| title        = Plea Bargaining And Its History
| journal      = [[Columbia Law Review]]
| volume       = 79
| issue        = 1
| pages = 1–43
| doi = 10.2307/1122051
| jstor = 1122051
| access-date   = 2012-01-10
| url          = http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/clr79&div=11
| quote        = ...&nbsp;roughly ninety percent of the criminal defendants convicted in state and federal courts plead guilty rather than exercise their right to stand trial before a court or jury.
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url        = https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plea/interviews/mcspadden.html
|title      = Interview: Judge Michael McSpadden
|author     = [Bikel, Ofra] | author-link = Ofra Bikel
|date       = June 17, 2004
|work       = [[Frontline (U.S. TV series)|FRONTLINE]]
|publisher  = [[WGBH-TV|WGBH]] Educational Foundation
|location   = Boston, Massachusetts
|access-date = 2012-01-10
|quote      = Those few cases being tried set the standard for everybody in determining what to do with the 95 percent, 96 percent of the plea bargain cases.
}}</ref> which bypasses the jury trial.

Some commentators contend that the guilty-plea system (and the high costs incurred in trials) unfairly coerces defendants into relinquishing their right to a jury trial.<ref>{{cite journal
| last1    = Lynch | first1 = Timothy | author-link1 = Timothy Lynch
|date=Fall 2003    | access-date  = 2012-01-10
| url      = http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv26n3/v26n3-7.pdf
| title    = The Case Against Plea Bargaining
| journal  = [[Regulation (magazine)|Regulation]]
| volume   = 23 | issue = 3   | pages     = 23–27
| location = Washington, D.C. | publisher = [[Cato Institute]]
| ssrn = 511222
| quote    = The overwhelming majority of individuals who are accused of crime forgo their constitutional rights and plead guilty.
}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Burns |first=Robert P. |title=The death of the American trial |date=2009 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-08126-7 |location=Chicago |pages=120–121}}</ref>

Others contend that there never was a golden age of jury trials, but rather that juries in the early nineteenth century (before the rise of plea bargaining) were "unwitting and reflexive, generally wasteful of public resources and, because of the absence of trained professionals, little more than slow guilty pleas themselves", and that the guilty-plea system that emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century was a superior, more cost-effective method of achieving fair outcomes.<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Rise of Guilty Pleas: New York, 1800–1865|author1=McConville, Mike |author2=Chester Mirsky|journal=Journal of Law and Society|volume=22|number=4|date=December 1995|pages=443–474|publisher=Blackwell Publishing on behalf of Cardiff University|jstor=1410610|doi=10.2307/1410610 }}</ref>