New ABA study explains why jury trials are disappearing
December 28, 2020 Share:
As jury trials disappear from American courtrooms, independent of the pandemic, lawyers, judges and legislators should consider changing four factors that are suppressing such trials: civil damage caps, mandatory arbitration, criminal sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences.
According to a new report from the ABA Commission on the American Jury, “the jury trial is an exceptional rather than a commonplace outcome.”
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That’s the conclusion of a four-year study released by the American Bar Association Commission on the American Jury.
The study is based on a survey of 1,460 lawyers and judges from 2016 to 2019, and results were published in the Louisiana Law Review at Louisiana State University. The article was co-authored by Shari Seidman Diamond of Northwestern University and Jessica M. Salerno of Arizona State University.