Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca
Jury Duty – November 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
So what is a jury, anyway? A jury is a group of people legally selected and sworn to inquire into, and decide the truth of, factual evidence and to render a verdict according to that evidence.
The jury’s earliest incarnation in England (the legal system upon which our own is based) may have derived from the Norman institution of “recognition by sworn inquest,” in which 12 knights were chosen to examine matters of interest to the Crown (such as the taxation of an individual) which could become the subject of public inquiry.