The controversy that eventually began Georgia v. Brailsford during the Revolutionary War. Many states, including Georgia, passed laws “confiscating” debts owed to British creditors.70 At the end of the war, the 1783 peace treaty between England and the United States established protection for foreign creditors.71 Article four of the treaty stated that “creditors on either side shall have no legal impediment to the recovery of the full value in pounds sterling of all bona fide debts incurred up to this moment.” 72 Prior to the creation of the federal courts, this provision was de facto unenforceable; State laws, state judges, and state juries all sided with U.S. debtors.73 But when federal district courts opened their doors and dispatched the slips in 1790, foreign creditors rushed in.74 Some legal journals have speculated that jury trials encourage harsh sentences in the United States. [43] With rare exceptions, each party is allowed to plead for 30 minutes, and up to 24 cases can be heard in a single sitting. Since in most cases it is a review of a decision of another court, there is no jury and no witnesses are heard. For each case, the Court shall have before it a record of the previous proceedings and pleadings containing the arguments of both parties. Brailsford pitted Georgia against a British creditor. Everyone claims the right to collect a debt from a Georgian citizen.
As a State was a party, the case fell within the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. As Brailsford was a common law prosecution, the Supreme Court appointed a jury; In this case, a “special jury”. Standard Oil Co. of Cal. v. Arizona, 738 F.2d 1021 (9th Cir. 1984); SEE 50A C.J.S. Juries § 16 (cites Standard Oil and states that “the Seventh Amendment right to a civil jury trial in federal court is not limited to individuals and applies to. state(s), at least when a state issues in its capacity as property law or as a representative of its citizens”) (footnotes omitted); see Julia A. Dahlberg, Note, States As Litigants in Federal Court: If the Seventh Amendment Right to Jury Trial Applies to the States, 37 Hastings L.J. 637 (1986) (argues for political reasons that States should have the right to a jury trial).
The term “special jury” refers to a jury that has a combination of three characteristics. First, the term “special jury” sometimes refers to a jury of experts, for example: a jury of traders to negotiate commercial disputes.9 Second, the “special jury” sometimes refers to a jury of upper-class people who hear particularly important or difficult issues, the so-called “blue ribbon jury.” 10 Finally, the term “special jury” almost always refers to a particular procedure for jury composition, the “suppressed” jury, which is explained below.11 Some “special juries” had all three characteristics, others were “formed” but composed of the upper class and not merchants per se, and still others were “beaten” and made up of expert jurors. selected on the basis of their expertise. and not necessarily their socio-economic position. The practice of these “special juries” dates back at least to the early seventeenth century12, if not further. In particular, expert jurors composed of merchants were appointed as early as the fourteenth century.13 Second, a criminal defendant may waive the right to a jury trial. The defendant`s request must be voluntary, conscious, intelligent and written. The court and the government must accept the defendant`s claim.
Special merchant juries in America in the 1780s and 1790s also did not violate the separation between judicial law and facts found by jurors. Georgia,155 rejected it when it became clear that there were no issues to be resolved at the time.156 In February 1795, a year after its first jury trial, the court again presided over a jury trial in the unpublished case Oswald v.