New York State's formal declaration of the right to a trial by jury preceded the statutory creation of the Supreme Court by eight years. In 1683, the Colonial Assembly issued the Charter of Liberties and Privileges requiring that "all tryalls shall be by verdict of twelve men as neer as may be peers or equals from the neighborhood and in the county, shire or division where the fact shall arise or grow whether the same be by indictment, infermacion, declaration or otherwise, and the person offencer or defendant." Then, in 1691, the Assembly established the Supreme Court, and legislated that no question of fact was to be decided except by default, admission or the verdict of a jury of twelve men. The Charter of 1691 continued the right to a jury trial, although later legislation denied it in some minor civil and criminal cases and the number of jurors was changed in civil cases.

By the time of the first State Constitution, adopted in 1777, the Supreme Court was taken for granted. All the Constitution said about the Court was that its judges were to hold office during good behavior or until 60 years old. Similarly the Constitution retained prior jury practice: trial by jury where used in the colony was to be inviolate forever and the use of the jury was to be as it existed on April 19, 1775. Subsequent New York State Constitutions reaffirmed the right to trial by jury and incorporated statutory changes in the right. Although the jury has generally been viewed from the perspective of the litigant, and most frequently that of the criminal defendant, the separate and independent right of a person to be a juror was recognized by the Legislature in 1895 when it protected citizens' civil and legal rights, and prohibited disqualification as a juror based on race, color or creed. The Constitution of 1938, Article 1, § 11, prohibited discrimination in the exercise of civil rights, and that provision continues today. When the Legislature re-structured and made uniform the procedures for jury selection and the qualifications for service in 1977, it declared as the policy of the State that all eligible citizens shall have the opportunity and obligation to serve as jurors unless disqualified, exempted or excused. Because jury service is a protected right, even peremptory challenges are subject to constitutional limitations.^[2]

Right to be a Juror

The statutory right to be a juror recognizes that it is inherently valuable, something qualitatively different from the important role of resolving factual disputes between litigants. A juror's service is an instrument for democracy. It forces people who might never otherwise have met to interact with one another. It requires that people share ideas and listen to one another critically. It necessarily compels and provides a means of participation in government. It teaches about the basic principles of our system of laws, and the underpinnings of that system in due process fairness. It provides the opportunity for citizens to make public decisions and thereby to oversee their public officials and limit their powers. It provides an opportunity to right imbalance and to redress wrongs as the community believes appropriate.

Jury service's potential for teaching and re-enforcing democratic principles, although not often articulated, appears to be generally accepted in our State's constitutional history. In the debate at the 1846 Constitutional Convention, Delegate Rhoades said: "The jury box is the means of bringing a larger portion of our citizens, the mechanics and farmers, into immediate contact and connextion with our courts of justice, and makes them a part of the same. It enables them to acquire a knowledge of the general principles of law — the rules which exist as the foundation of all good government and the mode and manner in which their own laws are administered....[B]y the force and requirements of these provisions in relation to jurors, a large portion of our citizens are brought into a situation to understand these laws and hear many of the leading principles of constitutional, statute and common law, discussed and applied."^[3]

A report to the delegates of the 1938 Constitutional Convention noted that "[t]he recruiting of the general community to decide judicial issues both democratizes the law and educates the general public in their personal and civil rights, brings them to an understanding of the nature of law and judicial procedure and makes them more competent and fit to decide the issues of the day."^[4]

The importance of jurors has raised critical questions through the years about who should be jurors and how jurors should be selected. Debate on these matters appears within a few years after the Charter of Liberties and Privileges in 1683 and continues to this date. Consideration of these issues has caused us to regularly re-examine our beliefs about equality, privilege and responsibility. On the pragmatic level, we have been required to deal with the problem of providing a sufficient number of jurors to satisfy the needs of the judicial system.

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