A Comparison of Criminal Jury Decision Rules in Democratic Countries

Abstract:     
In this age of renewed interest in comparative constitutionalism and more focused attention on the legal regimes of foreign democracies, it is astonishingly difficult to learn about other countries' jury systems. There is no central, short, and easily-accessible English source to which scholars and policymakers interested in how the criminal jury functions worldwide can turn for basic facts about the jury systems in use in democratic countries. This paper hopes to fill that gap in part by furnishing jury system information about the twenty-eight democracies (excluding the United States) that have been consistently democratic since at least the early 1990s and have a population of five million or more (with allowance for Mexico and South Africa).

Keywords: jury, decision rules, supermajorities

Accepted Paper Series