In the Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers set forth the grievances against the King of England that precipitated the American Revolution.
With respect to trial by jury, they specifically complained that English troops committed crimes while subjugating the colonists at the behest of the King but were protected from punishment by mock trials. At the same time, in many cases, the colonists were deprived of the benefits of trial by jury in that, rather than try the colonists locally for such offenses before a jury of their neighbors, they were frequently transported to England for trial where they were deprived of the right to call witnesses on their own behalf.
To rectify this situation, Article III of the Constitution established the Judicial Branch of government and provided that trial of all crimes, except impeachment, shall be by a jury, held in the state where the crime was committed.
However, it was left to Amendment VI in the Bill of Rights to flush out and describe more specifically what type of trial would be provided to the new citizens and residents of the United States. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused is entitled to:
(1) Speedy Trial:
Meaning that under Federal law and the later-adopted Speedy Trial Act, an accused must be given the opportunity to have the trial held within 70 days from the date of the accused’s first appearance in court. Naturally, this right can be waived and this is the reason why there is often a lapse of a year or more before the trial.
(2) Public Trial:
This is the reason that, along with family, friends, victims and other interested parties, news media are entitled to be admitted to the court -room to observe and report on the trial.
(3) An Impartial Jury:
In order to assure the impartiality of the jury, criminal defendants are afforded the right to question the jurors about their background, biases, and preconceived ideas or principles and can then use that information to remove certain jurors in order to arrive at those that are judged most impartial.
(4) To be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation:
The government must provide the accused with a written document, called an Indictment or Information, setting forth specifics of the crime charged, such as the date and location where the crime was committed, the identity of any victim and the statute or law that was violated.
(5) To be confronted with the witnesses against him:
This prevents the government from trying an accused based upon rumor. Rather, it is required that the witnesses be present in the courtroom to testify and that the defendant’s attorney be allowed to cross-examine, in order to test the truthfulness of the witness’s testimony.
(6) Compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor:
The accused is allowed to have subpoenas prepared and served on witnesses requiring them to come to court and testify and to produce documents or other tangible evidence.
(7) The assistance of counsel for his defense:
Somewhat surprising, even though the right to counsel was established by the Sixth Amendment ratified in 1791, it wasn’t until the Supreme Court’s decision in Gideon v. Wainright, 172 years later, that this right to counsel was afforded to people deemed too poor to hire an attorney.
The rights extended by the Sixth Amendment are the bedrock upon which our system of criminal justice is built. It was left to Federal and State legislators through the adoption of Rules of Criminal Procedure to implement these basic rights. In the Federal system, these rules are first proposed by the United States Supreme Court; then discussed and perhaps modified in congressional committees; and finally adopted by Congress. The states follow a similar process.
It was at the insistence of Thomas Jefferson that the Framers created and approved the Bill of Rights. Jefferson’s concern was that the Bill of Rights was necessary to “to guard liberty against the Legislative as well as the Executive Branches of the government” and in Jefferson’s mind, paramount among those protections was trial by a jury of one’s peers.
Thomas M. Bradshaw
