Purpose Of Jury Trial

The purpose of a trial is to discover the truth. The process of a trial is adversarial in nature. The adversaries in a criminal trial are the state and the defendant. The state is represented by a prosecutor. A defendant is represented by a criminal lawyer. Only two percent of criminal cases are disposed of by jury trials (Bohm & Haley, 2012). Before a trial formally begins, attorneys can file pretrial motions. A motion is a request to the judge for a particular action. Motions to obtain prosecutorial evidence or suppress evidence are most common. In the case of a jury trial, the members of the jury are sworn in. The court clerk will read the criminal complaint. At this point, the prosecution begins the trial with an opening statement outlining the case. The next step is an opening statement from the defense. A defense attorney is not required to make an opening statement. The next step is for the prosecution to submit its evidence and question its witnesses (Bohm & Haley, 2012). The defense has a couple of options after the prosecution has submitted its evidence. If the defense feels that the prosecution has not proved its case, then the defense can simply rest. The term rest means to not defend against the charge or charges (Bohm & Haley, 2012). …show more content…
The article discusses the pros and cons of having experts as members of a jury. An example of an expert could be a doctor as a jury member in a medical case. The doctor could very well use his expertise to decide the case. The problem with this situation is the fact that neither the defense or prosecution had an opportunity to cross examine the doctor’s expertise. The doctor’s expertise is generally not a part of the evidence presented in a case. The article contend that the process of having expert jurors should be closely monitored (Liska, 2017). This is just one example of the complexities in a criminal