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20 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 489 (1996-1997)
Making Juries Better Factfinders

handle is hein.journals/hjlpp20 and id is 503 raw text is: MAKING JURIES BETTER FACTFINDERS DANIEL P. COLLINS* Tocqueville once commented that the jury was, above all, a political institution.' That belief has, to a large degree been part of the conventional wisdom about juries. They are democracy in action. Indeed, those commenting on the history of the jury have tended to emphasize the trials in which the jury acted politically by rendering a just verdict despite the law and despite the evidence of guilt. Every high school student learns, for example, about the trial of John Peter Zenger, the 18th- century New York publisher who was acquitted of seditious libel by a nullifying jury that ignored the judge's instructions. There have been many other examples throughout American history- for example, cases involving fugitive slaves and anti-Vietnam War protesters.2 My view is quite different. As I see it, the most important reason for preserving trial by jury in criminal cases is not to promote democracy or to encourage appropriate nullifications; rather, the reason is to promote accurate determinations of guilt. It might be argued that juries are not well able to produce accurate decisions. But a look back at history-around the time the Constitution was adopted-will show that the Framers' belief in the accuracy of jury decisionmaking was one of the primary reasons given for protecting the right to ajury trial. * Associate, Munger, Tolles & Olson, Los Angeles, California. This article is a revision and extension of the remarks I made at the 1996 Federalist Society Symposium. At the time of the Symposium in February 1996, 1 was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. However, the views expressed herein are solely my own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Department ofJustice or any other federal agency, nor do these remarks represent the views of my current employer. 1. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, 1 DEMOCRACYIN AMERICA 283 (Phillips Bradley ed., Alfred A. Knopf 1945). 2. See, e.g., Paul Butler, Racially Based Juy Nullification: Black Power in the CriminalJustice System, 105 YALE L. J. 677, 703 (describing abolitionist jury nullification); David N. Dorfman & Chris K. Ii ima, Fictions, Fault, and Forgiveness: Jury Nullifcation in a New Context, 28 U. MICH. J.L. REFORM 861, 876-77 (1995) (discussing to jury nullification in cases involving prosecutions of Viemam War protesters and resisters).

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