In countries with a Common Law legal system, the jury often sits next to the judge during a trial.

The jury has a very important role because they will be the ones who will listen to arguments and evidence from both sides, the plaintiff and defendant in a civil case, or the prosecutor and defendant in a criminal case.

12 members of the jury in a trial in the US.

The selection process is random but rigorous

According to Findlaw, the jury selection process is as follows.

In addition, some conditions prevent people from being selected as juror candidates such as:

– Serving in the army

– Employees in the police department or fire department

– Civil servant working full time.

– A person who has been convicted of a felony with a prison sentence of more than 1 year.

Step 2, the court will contact each person in the group of juror candidates.

Step 3, at court, juror candidates will be `interviewed` by the judge and lawyers of both sides to decide whether they are qualified to be a juror or not, based on criteria such as fairness, reason

Step 4: Finally, there is the stage of refusal and request to replace jurors.

Often, defense attorneys will ask for replacement jurors with similar occupations or backgrounds to the victim because these people can sympathize with the  prosecution;

However, in the US, if one side requests to replace a juror from a minority group and the other side objects, the court will require the requesting side to provide an appropriate reason not based on race or gender.

Participating in a jury is the duty of every citizen

When served by the court with a summons to perform jury duty, citizens must seriously comply.

In some countries, jury members can be prosecuted and face up to two years in prison if they commit acts that may affect the objectivity of the trial…

Jurors are paid by the court about 5-15 USD/day of trial, depending on the country and region.

Because jury candidates are randomly selected, there are many cases where famous people have been summoned by the court for interviews such as: two former US presidents Barack Obama and George Bush, movie actor Tom Hanks, famous TV MC.

If there are jury regulations in foreign countries, Vietnamese law also has regulations on people’s jury regulations.

Vietnamese jurors and judges have equal power to decide the defendant’s guilt and sentence by majority vote (while the jury only decides whether the defendant is guilty or not, and the sentence will be decided by the judge)

Quoc Dat