ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the commonly held beliefs and assumptions which underlie traditional and oft-repeated adulation of jury trial. The jury has probably provoked more comment and research than any other component of the criminal justice system. It seems to attract the most praise and least theoretical analysis. "The legitimacy of the jury's role depends upon a strict adherence to some basic tenets of jury selection procedures, principally random selection and impartiality. A key factor in ensuring the jury's impartiality is its representativeness. The aim of jury selection is to create a jury of one's peers." Random selection from the community is unlikely to produce a cross-section, unless some form of stratified sampling is used, which is not the case in summoning a jury. Random selection may throw up juries which are all male, all Conservative, and all white. Apart from these problems, civil libertarian claims to a right to trial by random jury is historically and factually inaccurate.
