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26 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 175 (2003)
America's Adversarial and Jury Systems: More Likely to Do Justice

handle is hein.journals/hjlpp26 and id is 189 raw text is: AMERICA'S ADVERSARIAL AND JURY SYSTEMS: MORE LIKELY TO DO JUSTICE BY GERALD WALPIN I. ADVERSARIAL VS. INQUISITORIAL SYSTEM ......... 175 II. JURY SYSTEM .......................................................... 183 III. CONCLUSION ......................................................... 185 This Article aims to answer the following question: Are the American and British adversarial systems, which rely heavily on juries, or the German and Continental inquisitorial non-adversarial systems, which operate without juries, more likely to result in justice? The Article advocates for America's adversarial and jury systems because they are logically superior and, in my experience, they most often succeed in rendering justice. I. ADVERSARIAL VS. INQUISITORIAL SYSTEM Paraphrasing Winston Churchill's well known statement about democracy provides a succinct description of these competing systems of justice: no one pretends that the adversarial system is perfect; indeed the adversarial system may be the worst form of judicial procedure except for all others that have been tried from time * Mr. Walpin is a practicing litigator in New York and is counsel to Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman. In the interest of full disclosure, I have what some might call a handicap that does not infect any of the other contributors on this subject: I am not and have never been a professor. Thus, I have not taken part in the academic research, analysis, and scholarship that the other contributors on this subject proudly include in their credentials. My sole credential-aside from being a graduate of Yale Law School, where this symposium was initially held-is over 45 years of litigation experience from various different vantage points. These experiences include law clerkships under two federal district judges, defense counsel and prosecutor in several Air Force court-martials, five years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and, since then, an attorney in private practice, litigating both civil and criminal cases. While I was serving in France in the Air Force, I also had some personal experience with the French inquisitorial system of justice, where I was occasionally assigned as the official observer at French prosecutions of U.S. personnel charged with violating French criminal laws. 1. Winston Churchill, Speech in the House of Commons (Nov. 11, 1947), in THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS 216 (5th ed., 1999) (Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.).

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