The Power of the Jury

Nancy S. Marder is a Professor of Law and Director of the Justice John Paul Stevens Jury Center at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. In the fall of 2021, she was a Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Professor Marder writes about juries, judges, and courts and presents her work in the United States and abroad. She is a co-editor of Juries, Lay Judges, and Mixed Courts: A Global Perspective (2021).

• Introduction; 1. The summons and the setting: Beginning the transformation of citizens into jurors; 2. Voir Dire: Introducing jurors to the judge, their fellow jurors, and their role; 3. Peremptory challenges: A barrier that unnecessarily limits who can serve as jurors; 4. Jury instructions: Reinforcing group identity and making instructions accessible to jurors; 5. Jury deliberations: Performing the jury's main task with occasional assistance from the judge; 6. The post-verdict interview: How judges can help jurors in their transformation from jurors to engaged citizens; Conclusion.

'Marder's book is a timely and original account of one of our most important institutions. It begins with a broad reimagining of the transformation of ordinary citizens into responsible jurors. It then moves deftly to a host of reforms that would serve concretely to embody this compelling vision. It is the distillation of decades of serious thought.' Robert P. Burns, Professor, Northwestern University School of Law