THE CHANGING ROLE OF JURIES.

THE CHANGING ROLE OF JURIES. We are all familiar with the fact that jurors who know any witness are excluded from a jury. This reverses historical practice. Norman Cantor in THE CIVILIZATION OF THE MIDDLE AGES says about the period when Henry II ruled (beginning in 1154): “The man who was ‘ill-famed’ in his community had little chance when the opinion of the neighborhood was the determining factor in criminal proceedings and when the investigation of evidence by the court was unknown.” (page 317). A friend who was a scion of a distinguished family once remarked that he thought that juries should go back to their historical roots. He said that in the county he came from everybody knew who was a liar and who was truthful and that if jurors knew the witnesses, that would promote justice.