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The Trial: A History, from Socrates to O. J. Simpson

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How did the jury trial system get started?

Surprisingly as a trial attorney, even I didn't know the answer until reading this book. And it turns out the answer starts in ancient Babylon, detours to Mt. Sinai, stops briefly at ancient Athens, has a sojourn in the Roman Empire before finally wending its way through Christendom, the Roman Catholic Church and then ultimately to British common law.

In other words we have managed to inherit our legal traditions concerning the treatment of criminal defendants the same way that we've inherited our other traditions...through the accidents and mis steps of history itself.

And it also turns out that Sadikat Kadri, BOTH London barrister AND member of the New York state bar turns out to be an excellent guide making history about stories and interesting ones at that.

Through his eyes we watch as Socrates mounts his suicidal defense in ancient Athens. We're there when Marc Antony gives perhaps the pre eminent lawyer of all time, Cicero, the death sentence that others including Shakespeare later fantasize about giving all lawyers. We join him in marvelling at the unfilled promise of the Justinian law code, buried for ten centuries under the rubble of the dark ages. We see the first -- otherwise forgettable -- jury trial take place in 1220 England.

And then we watch the trial evolve from a presumption of guilt to one of innocence, a presumption against Defendants failing to talk to today's privilege against self incrimination, and into being basically the replacement for ancient "gladitor justice" where crowds could thrill at the bloodied hands of the victor to today where crowds watched to see if the bloodied glove actually fits.

Significantly, Kadri also shows us those other competing legal traditions that lack the right of juries...the cannonical law of the European continent wherein a judge alone inquisitorial rules on both the law and facts and the communist system wherein the "judge" is handed his rulings from higher authority.

Kadri shows us that while, for example the European continent was aflame with witch burnings, the jury sytem -- by its open and public nature -- actually helped put out the fires of witch hunt justice.

And indeed, those interested in further reading will quickly learn that trial attorneys, unless they know the judge, overwhelmingly prefer jury trials because juries have been shown to acquit twenty percent more often than judge tried cases without juries.

To be sure, in its long history and today, the jury system has made its errors.

Still the same, as inherited traditions go, our modern jury system remains the best tool against prosecutorial abuse and in that way...against tyranny itself.