Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch has a plan to make jury trial as the default in the civil court. The civil jury trial has been very little in the U.S. court and near extinction.
Judge Gorsuch’s plan to revive the civil court, Wall Street Journal reported. Judge Gorsuch together with Federal Circuit judge Susan Graber has proposed the revival of jury trial in civil court in. They sent the letter to to federal judiciary’s Advisory Committee on Rules of Civil Procedure in consist of three judges, namely Judges Jeffrey Sutton, David Campbell, and John D. Bates. Gorsuch and Graber sent the letter in June 2016.
In the letter, both Judges Gorsuch and Graber admitted their suggestion is still conceptual, but they would be delighted to work on the proposal for the suggestion. “We have not drafted proposed text; our suggestion is conceptual,” the letter read. “Though we would be happy to work on this issue further.”
Jury trial is codified in the Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, the number of civil jury trial is only one percent of the total civil lawsuit as reported by ABA Journal.
Suggestion from Gorsuch and Graber is simple. They propose the civil cases will have the jury trial as the default, similar to criminal cases. In that case, the party who entitled to have the jury trial will have his/her case to be tried by jury, unless they waive the jury trial.
There are four main reasons that bring the idea to life. The first one is the jury trial need to be encouraged, and the second one is the simplicity of jury trial will deliver virtue of the trial itself. The third one is jury trial will produce greater certainty, while the last one is jury trial will honor the Seventh Commandment.
Watch the discussion in the NYU School of Law. below regarding the dying of jury trial:
