Local federal court rule providing that a jury for the trial of
civil cases shall consist of six persons comports with the Seventh
Amendment requirement and the coextensive statutory requirement of
28 U.S.C. § 2072 that the right of trial by jury be preserved in
suits at common law, and is not inconsistent with Fed.Rule
Civ.Proc. 48 that deals only with parties' stipulations regarding
jury size. Pp.
413 U. S.
151-164.
456 F.2d 1379, affirmed.
BRENNAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
BURGER, C.J., and WHITE, BLACKMUN, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined.
DOUGLAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which POWELL, J.,
joined,
post, p.
413 U. S. 165.
MARSHALL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEWART, J.,
joined,
post, p.
413 U. S. 166.
POWELL, J., filed a dissenting opinion,
post, p.
413 U. S.
188.
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Local Rule 13(d)(1) of the Revised Rules of Procedure of the
United States District Court for the District of
Page 413 U. S. 150
Montana provides that a jury for the trial of civil cases shall
consist of six persons. [
Footnote
1] When respondent District Court Judge set this diversity case
or trial before a jury of six in compliance with the Rule,
petitioner sought mandamus from the Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit to direct respondent to impanel a 12-member jury.
Petitioner contended that the local Rule (1) violated the Seventh
Amendment; [
Footnote 2] 2(2)
violated the statutory provision, 28 U.S.C. § 2072, that rules
"shall preserve the right of trial by jury as at common law and as
declared by the Seventh Amendment . . . ;" [
Footnote 3]
Page 413 U. S. 151
and (3) was rendered invalid by Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 83 because
"inconsistent with" Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 48 that provides for juries
of less than 12 when stipulated by the parties. [
Footnote 4] The Court of Appeals found no
merit in these contentions, sustained the validity of local Rule
13(d)(1), and denied the writ, 456 F.2d 1379 (1972). We granted
certiorari, 409 U.S. 841 (1972). We affirm.
I
In
Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S.
78 (1970), the Court sustained the constitutionality of
a Florida statute providing for six-member juries in certain
criminal cases. The constitutional challenge rejected in that case
relied on the guarantees of jury trial secured the accused by Art.
III, § 2, cl. 3, of the Constitution and by the Sixth Amendment.
[
Footnote 5] We expressly
reserved, however, the question
Page 413 U. S. 152
whether "additional references to the
common law' that occur
in the Seventh Amendment might support a different interpretation"
with respect to jury trial in civil cases. Id. at 92 n.
30. We conclude that they do not.
The pertinent words of the Seventh Amendment are: "In Suits at
common law . . . the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. . .
." [
Footnote 6] On its face,
this language is not directed to jury characteristics, such as
size, but rather defines the kind of cases for which jury trial is
preserved, namely, "suits at common law." And while it is true that
"[w]e have almost no direct evidence concerning the intention of
the framers of the seventh amendment itself," [
Footnote 7] the historical setting in which the
Seventh Amendment was adopted highlighted a controversy that was
generated not by concern for preservation of jury characteristics
at common law, but by fear that the civil jury itself would be
abolished unless protected in express words. Almost a century and a
half ago, this Court recognized that
"[o]ne of the strongest
Page 413 U. S. 153
objections originally taken against the constitution of the
United States, was the want of an express provision securing the
right of trial by jury in civil cases;"
Parsons v.
Bedford, 3 Pet. 433,
28 U. S. 445
(1830). But the omission of a protective clause from the
Constitution was not because an effort was not made to include one.
On the contrary, a proposal was made to include a provision in the
Constitution to guarantee the right of trial by jury in civil
cases, but the proposal failed because the States varied widely as
to the cases in which civil jury trial was provided, and the
proponents of a civil jury guarantee found too difficult the task
of fashioning words appropriate to cover the different state
practices. [
Footnote 8] The
Page 413 U. S. 154
strong pressures for a civil jury provision in the Bill of
Rights encountered the same difficulty. Thus, it was agreed that,
with no federal practice to draw on and,
Page 413 U. S. 155
since state practices varied so widely, any compromising
language would necessarily have to be general. As a result,
although the Seventh Amendment achieved the primary goal of jury
trial adherents to incorporate an explicit constitutional
protection of the right of trial by jury in civil cases, the right
was limited in general words to "suits at common law." [
Footnote 9] We can only conclude,
therefore, that, by referring to the "common law," the Framers of
the Seventh Amendment were concerned with preserving the right of
trial by jury in civil cases where it existed at common law, rather
than the various incidents
Page 413 U. S. 156
of trial by jury. [
Footnote
10] In short, what was said in
Williams with respect
to the criminal jury is equally applicable here: constitutional
history reveals no intention on the part of the Framers "to equate
the constitutional and common law characteristics of the jury." 399
U.S. at
399 U. S.
99.
Consistently with the historical objective of the Seventh
Amendment, our decisions have defined the jury right preserved in
cases covered by the Amendment, as "the substance of the common law
right of trial by jury, as distinguished from mere matters of form
or procedure. . . ."
Baltimore & Carolina Line, Inc. v.
Redman, 295 U. S. 654,
295 U. S. 657
(1935). [
Footnote 11] The
Amendment, therefore, does not "bind the federal courts to the
exact procedural incidents or details of jury trial according to
the common law in 1791,"
Galloway v. United
States, 319
Page 413 U. S. 157
U.S. 372,
319 U. S. 390
(1943);
see also Ex parte Peterson, 253 U.
S. 300,
253 U. S. 309
(1920);
Walker v. New Mexico & S. P. R. Co.,
165 U. S. 593,
165 U. S. 596
(1897), and
"[n]ew devices may be used to adapt the ancient institution to
present needs and to make of it an efficient instrument in the
administration of justice. . . ."
Ex parte Peterson, supra, at
253 U. S.
309-310;
Funk v. United States, 290 U.
S. 371,
290 U. S. 382
(1933).
Our inquiry turns, then, to whether a jury of 12 is of the
substance of the common law right of trial by jury. Keeping in mind
the purpose of the jury trial in criminal cases to prevent
government oppression,
Williams, 399 U.S. at
399 U. S. 100,
and, in criminal and civil cases, to assure a fair and equitable
resolution of factual issues,
Gasoline Products Co. v. Champlin
Co., 283 U. S. 494,
283 U. S. 498
(1931), the question comes down to whether jury performance is a
function of jury size. In
Williams, we rejected the notion
that "the reliability of the jury as a factfinder . . . [is] a
function of its size," 399 U.S. at
399 U. S.
100-101, and nothing has been suggested to lead us to
alter that conclusion. Accordingly, we think it cannot be said that
12 members is a substantive aspect of the right of trial by
jury.
It is true, of course, that several earlier decisions of this
Court have made the statement that "trial by jury" means "a trial
by a jury of twelve. . . ."
Capital Traction Co. v. Hof,
174 U. S. 1,
174 U. S. 13
(1899);
see also American Publishing Co. v. Fisher,
166 U. S. 464
(1897);
Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581,
176 U. S. 586
(1900). But in each case, the reference to "a jury of twelve" was
clearly dictum, and not a decision upon a question presented or
litigated. Thus, in
Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, supra,
the case most often cited, the question presented was whether a
civil action brought before a justice of the peace of the District
of Columbia was triable by jury,
Page 413 U. S. 158
and that question turned on whether the justice of the peace was
a judge empowered to instruct them on the law and advise them on
the facts. Insofar as the
Hof statement implied that the
Seventh Amendment required a jury of 12, it was, at best, an
assumption. And even if that assumption had support in common law
doctrine, [
Footnote 12] our
canvass of the relevant constitutional history, like the history
canvassed in
Williams concerning the criminal jury,
"casts considerable doubt on the easy assumption in our past
decisions that, if a given feature existed in a jury at common law
. . . , then it was necessarily preserved in the Constitution."
399 U.S. at
399 U. S. 92-93.
We cannot, therefore, accord the unsupported dicta of these earlier
decisions the authority of decided precedents. [
Footnote 13] There remains, however, the
question whether a jury of six satisfies the Seventh Amendment
guarantee of "trial by jury." We had no difficulty reaching the
conclusion in
Williams that a jury of six would guarantee
an accused the trial by jury secured by Art. III and the Sixth
Amendment. Significantly, our determination that there was "no
discernible difference between the results reached by the two
different-sized juries," 399 U.S. at
399 U. S. 101,
drew largely upon the results of studies of the operations of
juries of six in civil cases. [
Footnote 14] Since then,
Page 413 U. S. 159
much has been written about the six-member jury, but nothing
that persuades us to depart from the conclusion reached in
Williams. [
Footnote
15] Thus, while we express no view
Page 413 U. S. 160
as to whether any number less than six would suffice, [
Footnote 16] we conclude that a jury
of six satisfies the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of trial by jury
in. civil cases. [
Footnote
17]
Page 413 U. S. 161
II
The statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2072, authorizes this Court to
promulgate the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure but provides that
"[s]uch rules . . . shall preserve the right of trial by jury as at
common law and as declared by the Seventh Amendment to the
Constitution." [
Footnote 18]
Petitioner argues that, in securing trial by jury "as at common
law" and also "as declared by the Seventh Amendment," Congress
meant to provide a jury having the characteristics of the common
law jury even if the Seventh Amendment did not require a jury with
those characteristics. As the Court of Appeals observed, "[t]his
would indeed be a sweeping limitation." 46 F.2d at 1380. Petitioner
would impute to Congress an intention to saddle archaic and
presently unworkable common law procedures upon the federal courts,
[
Footnote 19] and thereby to
nullify innovative changes approved by this Court over the years
that have now become commonplace and, for
Page 413 U. S. 162
all practical purposes, "essential to the preservation of the
right" of trial by jury in our modern society.
Ex parte
Peterson, 253 U.S. at
253 U. S. 310;
Galloway v. United States, 319
U.S. at
319 U. S.
390-391. For to say that Congress chose this means to
render our system of civil jury trial immutable as of 1791, or some
other date, is to say the Congress meant to deny the judiciary the
"flexibility and capacity for growth and adaptation [which] is the
peculiar boast and excellence of the common law."
Hurtado v.
California, 110 U. S. 516,
110 U. S. 530
(1884);
Funk v. United States, 290 U.S. at
290 U. S.
382.
But petitioner's extravagant contention has not the slightest
support in the legislative history of the provision. Section 2072
is derived from the Enabling Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1064. [
Footnote 20] Section 2 of that Act
gave this Court the
"power to unite the general rules prescribed . . . for cases in
equity with those in actions at law so as to secure one form of
civil action and procedure for both."
H.R.Rep. No. 1829, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1934). As emphasized
by the Court of Appeals, the language of § 2 preserving the right
of trial by jury was included "to assure that with such union [of
law and equity] the right of trial by jury would be neither
expanded nor contracted." 456 F.2d at 1381, citing 5 J. Moore,
Federal Practice �38.06, p. 44 (2d ed.1971).
See also Cooley v.
Strickland Transportation Co., 459 F.2d 779, 785 (CA5 1972).
In other words, Congress used the language in question for the sole
purpose of creating a statutory right coextensive with that under
the Seventh
Page 413 U. S. 163
Amendment itself. [
Footnote
21] If Congress had meant to prescribe a jury number or to
legislate common law features generally, "it knew how to use
express language to that effect."
Williams v. Florida, 399
U.S. at
399 U. S.
97.
III
Petitioner's argument that local Rule 13(d)(1) [
Footnote 22] is inconsistent with Fed.Rule
Civ.Proc. 48 rests on the proposition that Rule 48 implies a
direction to impanel a jury of 12 in the absence of a stipulation
of the parties for a lesser number. Rule 48 was drafted at the time
the statement in
Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, supra, that
trial by jury means a "jury of twelve," was generally accepted.
Plainly the assumption of the draftsmen that such was the case
cannot be transmuted into an implied direction to impanel juries of
12 without regard to whether a jury of 12 was required by the
Seventh Amendment. Our conclusion that the
Hof statement
lacks precedential weight leaves Rule 48 without the support even
of the draftsmen's assumption, and thus there is nothing in the
Rule with which the local Rule is inconsistent. [
Footnote 23]
Page 413 U. S. 164
See Cooley v. Strickland Transportation Co., supra, at
783-785; Devitt, The Six Man Jury in the Federal Court, 53 F.R.D.
273, 274 n. 1 (1971).
Similarly, we reject the argument that the local Rule conflicts
with Rule 48 because it deprives petitioner of the right to
stipulate to a jury of "any number less than twelve." Aside from
the fact that there is no indication in the record that petitioner
ever sought a jury of less than 12, Rule 48 "deals only with a
stipulation by
[t]he parties.' It does not purport to prevent
court rules which provide for civil juries of reduced size."
Cooley v. Strickland Transportation Co., supra, at
784.
Affirmed.
Page 413 U. S. 165
[
Footnote 1]
Rule 13(d)(1) provides:
"A jury for the trial of civil cases shall consist of six
persons plus such alternate jurors as may be impaneled."
Similar local rules have been adopted by 54 other federal
district courts, at least as to some civil cases.
See the
appendix to Fisher, The Seventh Amendment and the Common Law: No
Magic in Numbers, 56 F.R.D. 507, 535-542 (1973) (the District Court
of Delaware has since adopted a rule effective January 1, 1973). In
addition, two bills were introduced in the 92d Congress to reduce
to six the number of jurors in all federal civil cases. H.R. 7800,
92d Cong., 1st Sess. (1971); H.R. 13496, 92d Cong., 2d Sess.
(1972). H.R. 7800, insofar as it related to civil juries, has
received the approval of the Committee on the Operation of the Jury
System of the Judicial Conference of the United States. 1971 Annual
Report of the Director of the Administrative Office of the United
States Courts 41. That Conference itself, at its March, 1971,
meeting, endorsed "in principle" a reduction in the size of civil
juries.
Ibid.
[
Footnote 2]
The Seventh Amendment provides:
"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be
preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise
reexamined in any Court of the United States than according to the
rules of the common law."
State court decisions have usually turned on the interpretation
of state constitutional provisions.
See Ann., 47 A.L.R.3d
895 (1973).
[
Footnote 3]
Title 28 U.S.C. § 2072 provides:
"The Supreme Court shall have the power to prescribe by general
rules, the forms of process, writs, pleadings, and motions, and the
practice and procedure of the district courts and courts of appeals
of the United States in civil actions. . . ."
"Such rules shall not abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive
right and shall preserve the right of trial by jury as at common
law and as declared by the Seventh Amendment to the
Constitution."
[
Footnote 4]
Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 48 provides:
"The parties may stipulate that the jury shall consist of any
number less than twelve or that a verdict or a finding of a stated
majority of the jurors shall be taken as the verdict or finding of
the jury."
Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 83 provides:
"Each district court by action of a majority of the judges
thereof may from time to time make and amend rules governing its
practice not inconsistent with these rules. . . . In all cases not
provided for by rule, the district courts may regulate their
practice in any manner not inconsistent with these rules."
[
Footnote 5]
Art. III, § 2, cl. 3, provides:
"The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall
be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the
said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed
within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the
Congress may by Law have directed."
The Sixth Amendment provides:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right
to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and
district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which
district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be
informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be
confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory
process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
[
Footnote 6]
The reference to "common law" contained in the second clause of
the Seventh Amendment is irrelevant to our present inquiry because
it deals exclusively with the prohibition contained in that clause
against the indirect impairment of the right of trial by jury
through judicial reexamination of factfindings of a jury other than
as permitted in 1791.
Baltimore & Carolina Line, Inc. v.
Redman, 295 U. S. 654,
295 U. S. 657
(1935);
Parsons v.
Bedford, 3 Pet. 433,
28 U. S.
447-448 (1830); 5 J. Moore, Federal Practice �38.08 [5],
pp. 86-90 (2d ed.1971).
[
Footnote 7]
Henderson, The Background of the Seventh Amendment, 80
Harv.L.Rev. 289, 291 (1966).
[
Footnote 8]
See 2 M. Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention 587
(1911).
See also Henderson,
supra, n 7, at 292-294.
The question of a provision for the protection of the right to
trial by jury in civil cases apparently was not presented at the
Constitutional Convention until a proposed final draft of the
Constitution was reported out of the Committee on Style and
Arrangement. At that point, Mr. Williamson of North Carolina
"observed to the House that no provision was yet made for juries in
Civil cases and suggested the necessity of it." 2 Farrand,
supra, at 587. This provoked the following discussion:
"Mr. Gorham. It is not possible to discriminate equity cases
from those in which juries are proper. The Representatives of the
people may be safely trusted in this matter."
"Mr. Gerry urged the necessity of Juries to guard [against]
corrupt Judges. He proposed that the Committee last appointed
should be directed to provide a clause for securing the trial by
Juries."
"Col. Mason perceived the difficulty mentioned by Mr. Gorham.
The jury cases cannot be specified. A general principle laid down
on this and some other points would be sufficient. He wished the
plan had been prefaced with a Bill of Rights, & would second a
Motion if made for the purpose. . . ."
Ibid.
Three days later, a proposal was made by Mr. Gerry and Mr.
Pinckney to add the following language to the Art. III guarantee of
trial by jury in criminal cases: "And a trial by jury shall be
preserved as usual in civil cases." This proposal prompted the
following reaction:
"Mr. Gorham. The constitution of Juries is different in
different States, and the trial itself is
usual in
different cases in different States."
"Mr. King urged the same objections."
"Genl. Pinckney also. He thought such a clause in the
Constitution would be pregnant with embarrassments."
"The motion was disagreed to nem. con."
Id. at 628.
James Wilson of Pennsylvania defended the omission at the
Pennsylvania Convention convened to ratify the Constitution:
"The cases open to a jury differed in the different states; it
was therefore impracticable, on that ground, to have made a general
rule. The want of uniformity would have rendered any reference to
the practice of the states idle and useless, and it could not, with
any propriety, be said, that 'the trial by jury shall be as
heretofore,' since there has never existed any federal system of
jurisprudence to which the declaration could relate. Besides, it is
not in all cases that the trial by jury is adopted in civil
questions, for causes depending in courts of admiralty, such as
relate to maritime captures and such as are agitated in the courts
of equity, do not require the intervention of that tribunal. How,
then, was the line of discrimination to be drawn? The convention
found the task too difficult for them, and they left the business
as it stands -- in the fullest confidence that no danger would
possibly ensue, since the proceedings of the supreme court are to
be regulated by the congress, which is a faithful representation of
the people: and the oppression of government is effectually barred
by declaring that, in all criminal cases, the trial by jury shall
be preserved."
3 M. Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention 101 (1911).
A proponent of a guarantee responded:
"The second and most important objection to the federal plan,
which Mr. Wilson pretends to be made in a disingenuous form, is the
entire abolition of the trial by jury in civil cases. It seems to
me that Mr. Wilson's pretended answer is much more disingenuous
than the objection itself. . . . He says 'that the cases open to
trial by jury differing in the different States, it was therefore
impracticable to have made a general rule.' This answer is
extremely futile, because a reference might easily have been made
to the common law of England, which obtains through every State,
and cases in the maritime and civil law courts would, of course, be
excepted. . . ."
Quoted in Henderson,
supra, n 7, at 296-297.
See also 1 J. Elliot, The
Debates in the Several State Conventions, on the Adoption of the
Federal Constitution (2d ed. 1836).
[
Footnote 9]
That the words "common law" were used merely to establish a
general rule of trial by jury in civil cases was the view of Mr.
Justice Story in the discussion in his Commentaries of the Seventh
Amendment and the Judiciary Act of 1789:
"The phrase, 'common law,' found in this clause, is used in
contradistinction to equity, and admiralty, and maritime
jurisprudence. The constitution had declared, in the third
article,"
"that the judicial power shall extend to all cases in
law
and equity arising under this constitution, the laws of the
United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made under
their authority,"
"&c., and 'to all cases of
admiralty and maritime
jurisdiction.' It is well known that, in civil causes, in
courts of equity and admiralty, juries do not intervene, and that
courts of equity use the trial by jury only in extraordinary cases
to inform the conscience of the court. When, therefore, we find
that the amendment requires that the right of trial by jury shall
be preserved in suits at common law, the natural conclusion is that
the distinction was present to the minds of the framers of the
amendment. By
common law, they meant what the constitution
denominated in the third article 'law.' . . . And congress seem to
have acted with reference to this exposition in the judiciary act
of 1789, ch. 20, (which was contemporaneous with the proposal of
this amendment;). . . ."
3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United
States 645-646 (1833).
[
Footnote 10]
Constitutional history does not reveal a single instance where
concern was expressed for preservation of the traditional number
12. Indeed, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, a member of the
Constitutional Convention and later a Justice of this Court,
stated: "When I speak of juries, I feel no peculiar predilection
for the number twelve. . . ." 2 The Works of James Wilson 503 (R.
McCloskey ed.1967).
[
Footnote 11]
See also Scott, Trial by Jury and the Reform of Civil
Procedure, 31 Harv.L.Rev. 669, 671 (1918):
"Although the incidents of trial by jury which existed at the
time of the adoption of the constitutional guaranty are not thereby
abolished, yet those incidents are not necessarily made
unalterable. Only those incidents which are regarded as
fundamental, as inherent in and of the essence of the system of
trial by jury, are placed beyond the reach of the legislature. The
question of the constitutionality of any particular modification of
the law as to trial by jury resolves itself into a question of what
requirements are fundamental and what are unessential, a question
which is necessarily, in the last analysis, one of degree. The
question, it is submitted, should be approached in a spirit of
open-mindedness, of readiness to accept any changes which do not
impair the fundamentals of trial by jury. It is a question of
substance, not of form."
[
Footnote 12]
Although
Williams proceeded on the premise that the
common law jury was composed of 12 members, juries of less than 12
were common in this country throughout colonial times.
See
the cases and statutes cited in Fisher,
supra, n 1, at 529-532.
[
Footnote 13]
See Devitt, The Six Man Jury in the Federal Court, 53
F.R.D. 273, 274 (1971); Augelli, Six-Member Juries in Civil Actions
in the Federal Judicial System, 3 Seton Hall L.Rev. 281, 285
(1972); Croake, Memorandum on the Advisability and
Constitutionality of Six Man Juries and 5/6 Verdicts in Civil
Cases, 44 N.Y.State B.J. 385 (1972).
See also Leger v.
Westinghouse Electric Corp., 54 F.R.D. 574 (WD La. 1972);
contra, Winsby v. John Oster Mfg. Co., 336 F.
Supp. 663 (WD Pa. 1972).
[
Footnote 14]
Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78,
399 U. S. 101
n. 48 (1970).
[
Footnote 15]
Arguments, pro and con, on the effectiveness of a jury of six
compared to a jury of 12 will be found in Devitt,
supra,
n 13; Augelli,
supra, n 13;
Croake,
supra, n
13; Fisher,
supra, n
1; Bogue & Fritz, The Six-Man Jury, 17 S.D.L.Rev. 285 (1972);
Moss, The Twelve Member Jury in Massachusetts -- Can it be
Reduced?, 56 Mass.L.Q. 65 (1971); Zeisel, . . . And Then There Were
None: The Diminution of the Federal Jury, 38 U.Chi.L.Rev. 710
(1971); Zeisel, The Waning of the American Jury, 58 A.B.A.J. 367
(1972); Gibbons, The New Mini-juries: Panacea or Pandora's Box?, 58
A.B.A.J. 594 (1972); Kaufman, The Harbingers of Jury Reform, 58
A.B.A.J. 695 (1972); Whalen, Remarks on Resolution of 7th Amendment
Jury Trial Requirement, 54 F.R.D. 148 (1972); Note, Right to
Twelve-Man Jury, 84 Harv.L.Rev. 165 (1970); Note, Reducing the Size
of Juries, 5 U. Mich.J.L.Reform 87 (1971); Note, The Effect of Jury
Size on the Probability of Conviction: An Evaluation of
Williams v. Florida, 22 Case W.Res.L.Rev. 529 (1971);
Comment, Defendant's Right to a Jury Trial -- Is Six Enough?, 59
Ky.L.J. 997 (1971).
Professor Zeisel has suggested that the six-member jury is more
limited than the 12-member jury in representing the full spectrum
of the community, and this, in turn, may result in differences
between the verdicts reached by the two panels. Zeisel,
supra, 38 U.Chi.L.Rev. at 716-719.
On the other hand, one study suggests that the decrease in the
size of the jury from 12 to six is conducive to a more open
discussion among the jurors, thereby improving the quality of the
deliberative process. Note,
supra, 5 U.Mich.J.L.Reform at
99-106
See also C. Joiner, Civil Justice and the Jury 31,
83 (1962) (concluding prior to
Williams that the
deliberative process should be the same in either six- or 12-member
juries).
In addition, four very recent studies have provided convincing
empirical evidence of the correctness of the
Williams
conclusion that "there is no discernible difference between the
results reached by the two different-sized juries." Note,
Six-Member and Twelve-Member Juries: An Empirical Study of Trial
Results, 6 U.Mich.J.L.Reform 671 (1973); Institute of Judicial
Administration, A Comparison of Six- and Twelve-Member Civil Juries
in New Jersey Superior and County Courts (1972); Note, An Empirical
Study of Six- and Twelve-Member Jury Decision-Making Processes, 6
U.Mich.J.L.Reform 712 (1973); Bermant & Coppock, Outcomes of
Six- and Twelve-Member Jury Trials: An Analysis of 128 Civil Cases
in the State of Washington, 48 Wash.L.Rev. 593 (1973).
[
Footnote 16]
What is required for a "jury" is a number large enough to
facilitate group deliberation combined with a likelihood of
obtaining a representative cross-section of the community.
Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. at
399 U. S. 100.
It is undoubtedly true that, at some point, the number becomes too
small to accomplish these goals, but, on the basis of presently
available data, that cannot be concluded as to the number six.
See Tamm, A Proposal for Five-Member Civil Juries in the
Federal Courts, 50 A.B.A.J. 162 (1964); Tamm, The Five-Man Civil
Jury: A Proposed Constitutional Amendment, 51 Geo.L.J. 120
(1962).
[
Footnote 17]
My Brother MARSHALL argues in dissent that the various incidents
of trial by jury as they existed at common law are immutably saved
by the Seventh Amendment's use of the word "preserved." But
obviously the Amendment commands only that the right of trial by
jury be "preserved." Since a jury of 12 is, as has been shown, not
of the substance of the common law right of trial by jury, and
since there is "no discernible difference between the results
reached by the two different-sized juries,"
Williams v.
Florida, supra, at
399 U. S. 101,
the use of a six-member civil jury does not impair the right
"preserved" by the Seventh Amendment. Indeed, as my Brother
MARSHALL himself recognizes,
post at
413 U. S. 179,
several devices designed to improve the jury system and unknown to
the common law have been approved by this Court over the years.
See also Henderson,
supra, n 7; Scott,
supra, n 11. In each case, the determining factor was
that the new device did not impair the right preserved by the
Seventh Amendment. As Mr. Justice Brandeis aptly stated in response
to the argument that a federal court was prevented by the Seventh
Amendment from utilizing.a special master because it would infringe
upon the right of trial by jury:
"The command of the Seventh Amendment that 'the right of trial
by jury shall be preserved' . . . does not prohibit the
introduction of new methods for determining what facts are actually
in issue, nor does it prohibit the introduction of new rules of
evidence. Changes in these may be made. New devices may be used to
adapt the ancient institution to present needs and to make of it an
efficient instrument in the administration of justice. Indeed, such
changes are essential to the preservation of the right. The
limitation imposed by the Amendment is merely that enjoyment of the
right of trial by jury be not obstructed, and that the ultimate
determination of issues of fact by the jury be not interfered
with."
Ex parte Peterson, 253 U. S. 300,
253 U. S.
309-310 (1920).
[
Footnote 18]
Section 2072 is in terms applicable only to the general Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure prescribed by this Court. However, 28
U.S.C. § 2071, which authorizes federal district courts to
prescribe local rules of practice and procedure,
see
413 U. S.
infra, requires such rules to be "consistent with Acts of
Congress" as well as the general Federal Rules. Thus, if § 2072
prohibits a jury of less than 12, the local rule in question would
conflict with an Act of Congress, and would therefore be invalid.
See 3A W. Barron & A. Holtzoff, Federal Practice and
Procedure § 1171, p. 179 (C. Wright ed.1958).
[
Footnote 19]
See Henderson,
supra, n 7; Scott,
supra, n 11.
[
Footnote 20]
See 5 J. Moore, Federal Practice � 38.06 (2d ed.1971).
The pertinent provisions of the Enabling Act of 1934 were carried
forward by the codifying act of 1948, 62 Stat. 961, and later
became § 2072 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 1
et seq.
Section 2072 has been amended several times since 1947, but none of
the amendments is relevant to our present discussion.
[
Footnote 21]
Cf. Sibbach v. Wilson & Co., 312 U. S.
1,
312 U. S. 10
(1941):
"The second [proviso of the Enabling Act of 1934] is that, if
the rules are to prescribe a single form of action for cases at law
and suits in equity, the constitutional right to jury trial
inherent in the former must be preserved."
[
Footnote 22]
This Rule was adopted pursuant to Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 83, which
in turn is derived from 28 U.S.C. § 2071:
"The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress
may from time to time prescribe rules for the conduct of their
business. Such rules shall be consistent with Acts of Congress and
rules of practice and procedure prescribed by the Supreme
Court."
[
Footnote 23]
An
amicus argues that the local Rule is invalid under
our decision in
Miner v. Atlass, 363 U.
S. 641 (1960). That argument is misplaced.
Miner struck down a local rule authorizing discovery
deposition practice in admiralty cases. A court of admiralty had no
inherent power, independent of statute or rule, to order the taking
of depositions for the purpose of discovery. In 1939, this Court
omitted this "basic procedural innovation" from among the Civil
Rules adopted as part of the Admiralty Rules.
Miner held
that this omission
"must be taken as an advertent declination of the opportunity to
institute the discovery-deposition procedure of Civil Rule 26(a)
throughout courts of admiralty,"
id. at
363 U. S. 648,
and therefore, for this and additional reasons stated in the
opinion, that the local rule "is not consistent with the present
General Admiralty Rules. . . ."
Id. at
363 U. S. 647.
In contrast, we hold in this case that Local Rule 13(d)(1) is not
inconsistent with Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 48.
Amicus also suggests that
Miner should be read
to hold that all "basic procedural innovations" are beyond local
rulemaking power, and are exclusively matters for general
rulemaking. We need not consider the suggestion, because, in any
event, we conclude that the requirement of a six-member jury is not
a "basic procedural innovation." The "basic procedural innovations"
to which
Miner referred are those aspects of the
litigatory process which bear upon the ultimate outcome of the
litigation, and thus, "though concededly
procedural,' may be of
as great importance to litigants as many a `substantive' doctrine.
. . ." 363 U.S. at 363 U. S. 650.
Since there has been shown to be "no discernible difference between
the results reached by the two different-sized juries,"
Williams v. Florida, supra, at 399 U. S. 101
(see also n 15,
supra), a reduction in the size of the civil jury from 12
to six plainly does not bear on the ultimate outcome of the
litigation.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom MR. JUSTICE POWELL concurs,
dissenting.
Rule 13(d)(1) of the Revised Rules of procedure of the United
States District Court for the District of Montana provides:
"A jury for the trial of civil cases shall consist of six
persons. . . ."
Federal Rule Civ.Proc. 48 -- which came into being as a result
of a recommendation of this Court to Congress which Congress did
not reject
* -- rests on a
federal statute.
The two Rules do not mesh; they collide. Rule 48 says that the
only way to obtain a trial with less than 12 jurors or a verdict
short of a unanimous one is by stipulation.
As MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL makes clear in his dissent, while the
parties under Rule 48 could stipulate for trial by an 11-man jury,
under the Montana District Court rule, only six jurors could be
required. Since all apparently agree that the framers of Rule 48
presumed there would be a jury of 12 in the absence of stipulation,
the only authority which could reduce 12 to six would be the
authority that created Rule 48. Neither we nor the District Court,
nor the Judicial Conference, nor a circuit court council has the
authority to make that change.
Whether the change, if made, would be constitutional is a
question I therefore do not reach.
Page 413 U. S. 166
* At the time the Rules of Civil Procedure became effective,
they had to be submitted to Congress by the Court and Congress had
90 days to reject them. 28 U.S.C. § 2072. At that time, § 2072
provided that these Rules "shall preserve the right of trial by
jury as at common law and as declared by the Seventh Amendment to
the Constitution." It seems clear beyond peradventure that the
draftsmen thought a jury of 12 was required, save as the parties by
stipulation waived that right by stipulating to a lesser
number.
MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom MR. JUSTICE STEWART joins,
dissenting.
Some 30 years ago, Mr. Justice Back warned his Brethren against
the "gradual process of judicial erosion which . . . has slowly
worn away a major portion of the essential guarantee of the Seventh
Amendment."
Galloway v. United States, 319 U.
S. 372,
319 U. S. 397
(1943) (dissenting opinion). Today, the erosion process reaches
bedrock. In the past, this Court has sanctioned changes in "mere
matters of form or procedure" in jury trials,
Baltimore &
Carolina Line, Inc. v. Redman, 295 U.
S. 654,
295 U. S. 657
(1935), and in "pleading or practice" before juries,
Walker v.
New Mexico & S. P. R. Co., 165 U.
S. 593,
165 U. S. 596
( 1897). But before today, we had always insisted that
"[w]hatever may be true as to legislation which changes any mere
details of a jury trial, it is clear that a statute which destroys
[a] substantial and essential feature thereof is one abridging the
right."
American Publishing Co. v. Fisher, 166 U.
S. 464,
166 U. S. 468
(1897).
See also Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.
S. 474 (1935);
Capital Traction Co. v. Hof,
174 U. S. 1
(1899).
Now, however, my Brethren mount a frontal assault on the very
nature of the civil jury as that concept has been understood for
some seven hundred years. No one need be fooled by reference to the
six-man trier of fact utilized in the District Court for the
District of Montana as a "jury." This six-man mutation is no more a
"jury" than the panel of three judges condemned in
Baldwin v.
New York, 399 U. S. 66
(1970), or the 12 laymen instructed by a justice of the peace
outlawed in
Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, supra. We deal
here not with some minor tinkering with the role of the civil jury,
but with its wholesale abolition and replacement with a different
institution which functions differently, produces different
Page 413 U. S. 167
results, [
Footnote 2/1] and was
wholly unknown to the Framers of the Seventh Amendment. [
Footnote 2/2]
In my judgment, if such a radical restructuring of the
Page 413 U. S. 168
judicial process is deemed wise or necessary, it should be
accomplished by constitutional amendment.
See, e.g., Tamm,
The Five-Man Civil Jury: Proposed Constitutional Amendment, 51
Geo.L.J. 120 (1962). It appears, however, that the common law jury
is destined to expire not with a bang, but a whimper. The
proponents of the six-man jury have not secured the approval of
two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and three-fourths of the
state legislatures for their proposal. Indeed, they have not even
secured the passage of simple legislation to accomplish their goal.
Instead, they have relied upon the interstitial rulemaking power of
the majority of the district court judges sitting in a particular
district to rewrite the ancient definition of a civil jury.
[
Footnote 2/3] They have done so,
moreover, in the teeth of an Act of Congress and a Federal Rule
promulgated by this Court
Page 413 U. S. 169
which, in my judgment, were designed to guarantee the 12-man
civil jury. By approving this mode of procedure, the Court turns
the so-called "clear statement" rule on its head. Instead of
requiring a clear statement from Congress when it legislates at the
limit of its constitutional powers,
see, e.g., Crowell v.
Benson, 285 U. S. 22,
285 U. S. 62
(1932), my Brethren approve a departure from settled constitutional
understanding despite a clear statement from Congress that it
intended no such thing. I must respectfully dissent.
I
At the outset, it should be noted that the constitutional issue
in this case is not settled by the prior decisions of this Court
upholding nonunanimous and six-man criminal juries.
See Apodaca
v. Oregon, 406 U. S. 404
(1972);
Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.
S. 356 (1972);
Williams v. Florida,
399 U. S. 78
(1970). This is true for at least three reasons.
First,
Apodaca, Johnson, and
Williams all
involved state trials and, therefore, the requirements of the
Fourteenth Amendment rather than the Sixth. This case is, of
course, distinguishable in that it deals with a federal trial and,
therefore, with Bill of Rights guarantees which are directly
applicable, rather than applicable only through the incorporation
process. [
Footnote 2/4] Thus,
neither
Apodaca, Johnson, nor
Williams squarely
presented the Court with the problem of defining the meaning of
jury trial in a federal context. [
Footnote 2/5] Indeed, as
Page 413 U. S. 170
my Brother POWELL's concurring opinion in
Apodaca and
Johnson makes plain, there were, as of last Term at least,
five Members of this Court who thought that the Sixth Amendment
required unanimous jury verdicts in federal cases.
See also
Johnson v. Louisiana, supra, at
406 U. S. 395
(BRENNAN, J., dissenting). MR. JUSTICE POWELL argued in that
opinion that the
"process of determining the content of the Sixth Amendment right
to jury trial has long been one of careful evaluation of, and
strict adherence to the limitations on, that right as it was known
in criminal trials at common law."
Id. at
406 U. S. 370
n. 6. He concluded that the Sixth Amendment required unanimous
federal juries because, "[a]t the time the Bill of Rights was
adopted, unanimity had long been established as one of the
attributes of a jury conviction at common law."
Id. at
406 U. S. 371.
See also Williams v. Florida, supra, at
399 U.S. 123-125 (opinion of Harlan,
J.). It is apparently uncontested that in 1791, common law civil
juries consisted of 12 men.
See infra at
413 U. S. 177.
Thus, to the extent that Sixth Amendment precedent is applicable to
Seventh Amendment problems,
Johnson and
Apodaca
would seem to cut strongly in favor of a 12-man jury requirement in
federal court, rather than against such a requirement.
Moreover, even if it is assumed that the holdings in
Apodaca, Williams, and
Johnson are readily
transferable to a federal context, it still does not follow that
the definitions of trial by jury for purposes of the Sixth and
Seventh Amendments are necessarily coextensive. The two Amendments
use different language, and they guarantee different rights.
Indeed, as the
Williams court itself recognized, the
approval of six-man juries in criminal
Page 413 U. S. 171
cases did not resolve "whether, for example, additional
references to the
common law' that occur in the Seventh
Amendment might support a different interpretation." 399 U.S. at
399 U. S. 92 n.
30.
The Court today goes to great lengths to show that the reference
in the Seventh Amendment to "Suits at common law" speaks only to
the type of suit in which a jury is required, not to the type of
jury which is required in such suits. However, my brethren totally
ignore another textual difference between the Sixth and Seventh
Amendments which I consider to be of at least equal significance.
Whereas the Sixth Amendment refers only to "an impartial jury," the
Seventh Amendment states that "the right of trial by jury shall be
preserved" (emphasis added). The Seventh Amendment's
additional reference to the preservation of the right strongly
suggests that the content of that right is to be judged by
historical standards.
Certainly that has been this Court's understanding in the past.
In
Dimick v. Schiedt, for example, the Court held that the
Seventh Amendment "in effect adopted the rules of the common law,
in respect of trial by jury, as these rules existed in 1791," 293
U.S. at
293 U. S. 487,
and the dissent agreed that the purpose of the Seventh Amendment
was "to preserve the essentials of the jury trial as it was known
to the common law before the adoption of the Constitution."
Id. at
293 U. S. 490.
In
Baltimore & Carolina Line, Inc. v. Redman, the
Court held that the
"right of trial by jury thus preserved [by the Seventh
Amendment] is the right which existed under the English common law
when the Amendment was adopted."
295 U.S. at
295 U. S. 657.
And in
American Publishing Co. v. Fisher, the Court held
that what was guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment was "the peculiar
and essential features of trial by jury at the common law." 166
U.S. at
166 U. S. 468. It
should therefore be
Page 413 U. S. 172
clear that, whereas the words of the Sixth Amendment might be
read as permitting a functional approach which measures "Sixth
Amendment values," the Seventh Amendment requires a historical
analysis geared toward determination of what the institution was in
1791 which the Framers intended to "preserve."
See also Slocum
v. New York Life Ins. Co., 228 U. S. 364
(1913);
Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S.
1 (1899).
Finally, it is important to note that, whereas the legislative
history of the Sixth Amendment tended to support the Court's
decision in favor of six-man criminal juries, it is, at best,
ambiguous in the Seventh Amendment context. As the Court pointed
out in
Williams, the Sixth Amendment, as originally
introduced by James Madison in the House, provided
"[t]he trial of all crimes . . . shall be by an impartial jury
of freeholders of the vicinage,
with the requisite of unanimity
for conviction, of the right of challenge, and other accustomed
requisites."
1 Annals of Cong. 435 (1789) (emphasis added). The Amendment
passed the House in this form, but, when it reached the Senate,
that body expressly rejected the "accustomed requisites" language,
see Senate Journal, Sept. 9, 1789, 1st Cong., 1st Sess.,
77, and the Amendment as ultimately adopted contained no reference
to the common law features of jury trial.
In contrast, the history of the Seventh Amendment contains no
express rejection of language which would fix the common law
attributes of the civil jury. Indeed, as the Court itself
recognizes, the extant history of the Amendment is exceedingly
sketchy.
See generally Henderson, The Background of the
Seventh Amendment, 80 Harv.L.Rev. 289 (1966). Undeterred by the
absence of source material, however, my Brethren concoct an
elaborate theory designed to demonstrate that the Framers did not
intend to fix the nature of the civil jury as it existed at common
law. As I read the
Page 413 U. S. 173
majority opinion, the theory is based on the following
syllogism:
1. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention considered a
clause which would have protected the right to a civil jury, but
declined to adopt such a provision because state practice varied
widely as to the cases in which a civil jury was provided.
2. When the Seventh Amendment was passed, Congress overrode the
arguments of those opposed to a constitutional jury guarantee and
decided to provide a federal right of jury trial despite
differences between the States as to when jury rights attached.
3. Therefore, in the words of the Court,
"[w]e can only conclude . . . that . . . the Framers of the
Seventh Amendment were concerned with preserving the
right
of trial by jury in civil cases where it existed at common law,
rather than the various incidents of trial by jury."
It hardly requires demonstration that this "logic" rests on the
flimsiest of inferences. It simply does not follow that, because
the Amendment was, at one stage, rejected because of disparities
among the States in the instances in which the jury right attached,
its scope is therefore limited to the surmounting of these
disparities. Indeed, the opposite conclusion is equally plausible.
One could argue that, whereas there was dispute as to the cases in
which the jury trial right would attach, it was common ground
between opponents and proponents of the measure that, when it did
attach, its incidents would be as at common law. Thus, whatever the
meaning of the Amendment as to jury usage, the nature of the jury
is, by this argument, at its core, and agreed to by all
parties.
Moreover, even if the Court's chain of reasoning were correct,
the argument would still fall, since it is grounded on a faulty
major premise. True, the opponents of a jury guarantee at the
Constitutional Convention rested
Page 413 U. S. 174
their argument in part on the varying practice in the States as
to the cases in which the right of jury trial attached. But a more
detailed examination of the debates than the Court's highly
selective quotations permit makes clear that the opponents also
rested on the differences in the characteristics of jury trial
between the States. Thus, when a jury guarantee was first proposed,
Mr. Gorham, one of the principal drafters of the Constitution,
argued against the proposal, stating:
"It is not possible to discriminate equity cases from those in
which juries are proper. The Representatives of the people may be
safely trusted in this matter."
2 M. Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention 587 (1911)
(hereinafter cited as Farrand). But when the proposal came to a
final vote, Mr. Gorham made a somewhat different argument: "The
constitution of Juries is different in different States."
Id. at 628 (emphasis added). Similarly, while at one stage
James Wilson defended the absence of a jury requirement on the
ground that "[t]he cases open to a jury, differed in different
states," 3 Farrand 101, he also made a quite different
argument:
"By the constitution of the different States, it will be found
that no particular mode of trial by jury could be discovered that
would suit them all. The manner of summoning jurors, their
qualifications, of whom they should consist, and the course of
their proceedings, are all different in the different States, and I
presume it will be allowed a good general principle that, in
carrying into effect the laws of the general government by the
judicial department, it will be proper to make the regulations as
agreeable to the habits and wishes of the particular States as
possible; and it is easily discovered that it would have been
impracticable, by any general regulation, to have given
satisfaction to all."
3 Farrand 164.
Page 413 U. S. 175
Thus, it is clear that opponents of a jury guarantee were
concerned not only with the differing rules for when juries were
required among the States, but also with the differing content of
the jury right itself. [
Footnote
2/6] To the extent that anything at all can be inferred from
the rejection of these arguments, it follows by the Court's own
chain of reasoning that the Framers intended to override state
differences as to both the cases in which a jury right would attach
and the characteristics of the jury itself.
I should hasten to add that I do not mean to embrace that chain
of reasoning. In fact, as indicated above, I view the legislative
history as far too fragmentary to support any firm conclusion. But
I would have thought that the very uncertainty of the legislative
history would support a mode of analysis which looked to the jury
as it existed at the time the Seventh Amendment was written in
order to determine the intent of the Framers. As Mr. Justice Harlan
argued:
"[I]t is common sense, and not merely the blessing of the
Framers, that explains this Court's frequent reminders that 'The
interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is
necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed
in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in
the light of its history.'
Smith v. Alabama, 124
U.S.
Page 413 U. S. 176
465,
124 U. S. 478 (1888). This
proposition was again put forward by Mr. Justice Gray speaking for
the Court in
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S.
649 (1898), where the Court was called upon to define
the term 'citizen' as used in the Constitution."
"The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words
[the Citizenship Clause]. . . . In this, as in other respects, it
must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles
and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the
Constitution."
"169 U.S. at
169 U. S. 654. History
continues to be a wellspring of constitutional interpretation.
Indeed, history was even invoked by the Court in such decisions as
Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293 (1963), and
Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391 (1963), where it
purported to interpret the constitutional provision for habeas
corpus according to the 'historic conception of the writ,' and took
note that the guarantee was one rooted in common law, and should be
so interpreted.
Cf. United States v. Brown, 381 U. S.
437,
381 U. S. 458 (1965)."
Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. at
399 U.S. 123-124.
When a historical approach is applied to the issue at hand, it
cannot be doubted that the Framers envisioned a jury of 12 when
they referred to trial by jury. It is true that, at the time the
Seventh Amendment was adopted, jury usage differed in several
respects among the States.
See generally Henderson, The
Background of the Seventh Amendment, 80 Harv.L.Rev. 289 (1966).
But, for the most part, at least, these differences did not extend
to jury size, which seems to have been uniform, and indeed had
remained so for centuries. One authority has noted that, as early
as 1164, the Constitutions of Clarendon provided that
"where, in the case of a layman so rich and powerful that no
individual dares
Page 413 U. S. 177
to appear against him, 'the sheriff shall cause twelve legal men
of the neighbourhood, or of the vill, to take an oath in the
presence of the bishop that they will declare the truth about
it.'"
Wells, The Origin of the Petit Jury, 27 L.Q.Rev. 347 (1911). As
Professor Scott wrote,
"At the beginning of the thirteenth century, twelve was indeed
the usual but not the invariable number. But by the middle of the
fourteenth century, the requirement of twelve had probably become
definitely fixed. Indeed, this number finally came to be regarded
with something like superstitious reverence."
A. Scott, Fundamentals of Procedure in Actions at Law 7576
(1922) (footnotes omitted).
See also 1 W. Holdsworth, A
History of English Law 324-325 (7th ed.1956).
To be sure, not every element of English common law was carried
over without change in the Colonies. In the case of jury trial,
however, "in general, this venerable and highly popular institution
was adopted in the colonies in its English form at an early date."
Reinsch, The English Common Law in the Early American Colonies, in
1 Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History 412 (1907). As the
Court concluded in
Williams v. Florida,
"[t]he States that had adopted Constitutions by the time of the
Philadelphia Convention in 1787 appear for the most part to have
either explicitly provided that the jury would consist of 12,
see Va.Const. of 1776, § 8, in 7 F. Thorpe, Federal and
State Constitutions 3813 (1909), or to have subsequently
interpreted their jury trial provisions to include that
requirement."
399 U.S. at
399 U. S. 98-99,
n. 45. [
Footnote 2/7]
Page 413 U. S. 178
On the basis of this historical record, this Court has more than
once concluded that the Seventh Amendment guarantees the
preservation of 12-man juries.
As the Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Gray, said in
Capital Traction Co. v. Hof,
"'Trial by jury,' in the primary and usual sense of the term at
the common law and in the American constitutions, is . . . a trial
by a jury of twelve men before an officer vested with authority to
cause them
Page 413 U. S. 179
to be summoned and empaneled, to administer oaths to them and to
the constable in charge, and to enter judgment and issue execution
on their verdict. . . . This proposition has been so generally
admitted, and so seldom contested, that there has been little
occasion for its distinct assertion. Yet there are unequivocal
statements of it to be found in the books."
174 U.S. at
174 U. S. 13-14.
Cf. Patton v. United States, 281 U.
S. 276 (1930);
Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.
S. 581 (1900);
American Publishing Co. v.
Fisher, 166 U. S. 464 (
1897);
Springville v. Thomas, 166 U.
S. 707 (1897).
The Court today elects to abandon the certainty of this
historical test, as well as the many cases which support it, in
favor of a vaguely defined functional analysis which asks not what
the Framers meant by "trial by jury," but rather whether some
substitute for the common law jury performs the same functions as a
jury and serves as an adequate substitute for one. It is true that
some of our prior cases support a functional approach to an
evaluation of procedural innovations which surround jury trials.
The Court has in the past upheld such devices as jury
interrogatories and reports of special masters as not interfering
with the functioning of a common law jury.
See, e.g., Ex parte
Peterson, 253 U. S. 300
(1920);
Walker v. New Mexico & S. P. R. Co.,
165 U. S. 593
(1897).
But see Dimick v. Schiet, 293 U.
S. 474 (1935). But I know of no prior case which has
utilized a functional analysis to evaluate the very composition of
the civil jury.
I submit that the reason for the absence of such cases derives
from the inherent nature of the problem. It is possible to
determine in a principled fashion whether the appurtenances which
surround a jury interfere with the essential functioning of that
institution. One can
Page 413 U. S. 180
evaluate whether additur, for example, or directed verdicts
interfere with the jury's role as it existed at common law.
See, e.g., Galloway v. United States, 319 U.
S. 372 (1943);
Dimick v. Schiedt, supra. But
the composition of the jury itself is a matter of arbitrary, a
prior definition. As Mr. Justice Harlan argued "[t]he right to a
trial by jury . . . has no enduring meaning apart from historical
form."
Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. at
399 U.S. 125 (separate opinion).
It is senseless, then, to say that a panel of six constitutes a
"jury" without first defining what one means by a jury, and that
initial definition must, in the nature of things, be arbitrary. One
could, of course, define the term "jury" as being a body of six or
more laymen. But the line between five and six would then be just
as arbitrary as the line between 11 and 12. There is no way by
reference to abstract principle or "function" that one can
determine that six is "enough," five is "too small," and 20 "too
large." [
Footnote 2/8] These
evaluations can only be made by reference to a hypothetical ideal
jury of some arbitrarily chosen size. All one can say is that a
jury of six functions less like a jury of 12 than would
Page 413 U. S. 181
a jury of, say eight, but more like a jury of 12 than would a
jury of three. [
Footnote 2/9]
Although I think it clear that my Brethren would reject, for
example, a jury of one, the Court does not begin to tell us how it
would go about drawing a line in a nonarbitrary fashion, and it is
obvious that, in matters of degree of this kind, nonarbitrary line
drawing is a logical impossibility.
Of course, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with drawing
arbitrary lines, and, indeed, as argued above, in order to resolve
certain problems, they are essential. Thus, this Court has not
hesitated in the past to rely on arbitrary demarcations in cases
where constitutional rights depend on matters of degree.
See,
e.g., Burns v. Fortson, 410 U. S. 686
(1973). But in cases where arbitrary lines are necessary, I would
have thought it more consonant with our limited role in a
constitutional democracy to draw them with reference to the fixed
bounds of the Constitution, rather than on a wholly
ad hoc
basis.
I think history will bear out the proposition that, when
constitutional rights are grounded in nothing more solid than the
intuitive, unexplained sense of five Justices that a certain line
is "right" or "just," those rights are certain to erode and,
eventually, disappear altogether. Today, a majority of this Court
may find six-man juries to represent a proper balance between
competing demands of expedition and group representation. But as
dockets become more crowded and pressures on jury trials grow, who
is to say that some future Court will not find three, or two, or
one a number large enough to satisfy its unexplicated sense of
justice? It should
Page 413 U. S. 182
be clear that constitutional rights which are so vulnerable to
pressures of the moment are not really protected by the
Constitution at all. As Mr. Justice Black never tired of
arguing,
"the accordion-like qualities of this philosophy must inevitably
imperil all the individual liberty safeguards specifically
enumerated in the Bill of Rights."
Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165,
342 U. S. 177
(1952) (Black, J., concurring).
See also Duncan v.
Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145,
391 U. S. 169
(1968) (Black, J., concurring).
Since some definition of "jury" must be chosen, I would
therefore rely on the fixed bounds of history which the Framers, by
drafting the Seventh Amendment, meant to "preserve." I agree with
MR. JUSTICE POWELL's observation in the Sixth Amendment context
that determining the content of the right to jury trial should
involve a "careful evaluation of, and strict adherence to the
limitations on, that right as it was known . . . at common law."
Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. at
406 U. S. 370
n. 6 (separate opinion). It may well be that the number 12 is no
more than a "historical accident," and is "wholly without
significance
except to mystics.'" Williams v. Florida,
supra, at 399 U. S. 102.
But surely there is nothing more significant about the number six,
or three, or one. The line must be drawn somewhere, and the
difference between drawing it in the light of history and drawing
it on an ad hoc basis is, ultimately, the difference
between interpreting a constitution and making it up as one goes
along.
II
The arbitrary nature of the line which must be drawn in
determining permissible jury size highlights another anomaly in the
Court's opinion. Normally, in our system, we leave the inevitable
process of arbitrary line drawing to the Legislative Branch, which
is far better equipped to make
ad hoc compromises. In the
past, we
Page 413 U. S. 183
have therefore given great deference to legislative decisions in
cases where the line must be drawn somewhere, and cannot be
precisely delineated by reference to principle. This Court has
involved itself in the sticky business of separating cases along a
continuum only when the Constitution clearly compels it to do so,
and when the legislature has plainly defaulted.
Today, the Court turns this practice inside out. It rejects what
I take to be a clearly articulated legislative decision -- a
decision, incidentally, which is fully consonant with
constitutional requirements -- in order to draw its own arbitrary
line. It does so, moreover, without any explanation for why it
finds the legislative determination unsatisfactory and, indeed,
with barely any explanation at all.
A
Title 28 U.S.C. § 2072 requires that the Rules of Civil
Procedure promulgated by this Court "shall preserve the right of
trial by jury as at common law and as declared by the Seventh
Amendment to the Constitution." As the Court recognizes, this
requirement is made applicable to local rules of procedure by 28
U.S.C. § 2071, which requires that "[s]uch rules shall be
consistent with Acts of Congress and rules of practice and
procedure prescribed by the Supreme Court."
The Court's treatment of this statutory requirement is, to say
the least, peculiar. When explicating the Seventh Amendment, my
Brethren hold that the Framers intended to govern only the types of
trials in which the jury right attaches, rather than to fix the
common law characteristics of the jury. Their reason for reaching
this conclusion is that the Seventh Amendment, by its terms,
guarantees the right to a jury trial "[i]n suits at common law,"
and not as it existed at common law. This language, the Court says,
"is not directed to jury
Page 413 U. S. 184
characteristics, such as size, but rather defines the kind of
cases for which jury trial is preserved, namely,
suits at
common law.'" Ante at 413 U. S. 152.
This argument from the language of the Seventh Amendment is fair
enough, although, for the reasons given in the preceding section, I
find it ultimately unpersuasive. But what, then, are we to say when
interpreting a provision which guarantees jury trials, not "in
suits at common law," but "as at common law"? By the Court's own
reasoning, it would seem that this phrase should be read to
guarantee the preservation of jury characteristics as they existed
at common law.
Uninhibited by the seeming restraints of its own logic, however,
my Brethren proceed to read this phrase to preserve juries in cases
tried at common law in the face of the merger of law and equity.
But if we are again to take the Court at its own word, this is
precisely the result achieved by the Seventh Amendment of its own
force. There is, of course, a well-recognized canon of construction
which requires courts to read statutory provisions so that, when
possible, no part of the statute is superfluous.
See,
e.g., 2 J. Sutherland, Statutes and Statutory Construction §
4705 (3d ed.1943), and cases cited therein. Yet the Court's reading
of this statute creates not just a redundancy, but a double
redundancy. If the framers of § 2072 had intended merely to
preserve jury trials in cases at common law, then no statute at all
would have been necessary, since, as the Court recognizes, the
Seventh Amendment by itself is sufficient to accomplish this
purpose. Yet Congress not only passed a statute -- it adopted a
provision securing trial by jury both "as declared by the Seventh
Amendment" and "as at common law." If one accepts for the moment
the Court's premise that the Seventh Amendment preserves only the
right to juries in common law cases,
Page 413 U. S. 185
Congress' addition of the phrase "as at common law" is
explicable only if the legislature also intended to protect jury
characteristics from change.
My Brethren chose to reject this clear meaning of the statute
and to read it instead in a manner which not only makes it
redundant but also, as demonstrated in the previous section, raises
the gravest constitutional questions. Yet the only argument I can
discern for reaching this result is the Court's stated reluctance
to "saddle archaic and presently unworkable common law procedures
upon the federal courts." With all respect, I had not thought it
our function to determine which statutory requirements are
"archaic" and "unworkable" and to enforce only those which we find
to be efficient and up to date. The Court asserts that, "[i]f
Congress had meant to prescribe . . . common law features [for
juries] . . . ,
it knew how to use express language to that
effect.'" But I, for one, would be hard-pressed to think of
language which more expressly guarantees the jury's common law
features than the statement that the right of trial by jury shall
be preserved "as at common law." So long as this is the command of
Congress, I had thought it our duty to obey, no matter how
"archaic" and "unworkable" the statutory requirement.
B
Nor is the statute the end of the matter. Federal Rule Civ.Proc.
48 provides in relevant part that "[t]he parties may stipulate that
the jury shall consist of any number less than twelve." It hardly
need be demonstrated that this provision is flatly inconsistent
with local Rule 13(d)(1). The number 11, for example, falls within
the class of "any number less than twelve," so that Rule 48
requires that the parties be permitted to stipulate to a jury of
11. Yet the local rule, which requires that "[a]
Page 413 U. S. 186
jury for the trial of civil cases shall consist of six persons,"
clearly would not permit a jury of 11, even if the parties
stipulated to such a jury.
The Court's contention that Rule 48 "deals only with a
stipulation
by [t]he parties'," and "does not purport
to prevent court rules which provide for civil juries of reduced
size," ante at 413 U. S. 164,
therefore passes my understanding. It is true enough that Rule 48
deals with stipulations by the parties, but it expressly says that
the court rules must permit such stipulations so long as the number
stipulated is "any number less than twelve." Since the numbers
seven through 11 are numbers less than 12, and since the local rule
does not permit stipulations of these numbers, the two rules are in
conflict, and the local rule must therefore fall. See 28
U.S.C. § 2071; Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 83.
Of course, Rule 48 does not, on its face, guarantee a jury of
12. That function is arguably performed by Rule 38(a), which
provides that
"[t]he right of trial by jury as declared by the Seventh
Amendment to the Constitution or as given by a statute of the
United States shall be preserved to the parties inviolate."
But as the Court itself recognizes, the framers of Rule 48
clearly presupposed a jury of 12 in the absence of stipulation.
Indeed, there is no way to make sense of a provision which permits
stipulations of any number less than 12 unless one assumes that, in
the absence of a stipulation, the jury would consist of 12. I am
thus once again at a loss to understand why the Court strains to
escape the plain intention of the Rule's drafters in order to
wrestle with grave constitutional questions that could easily have
been avoided.
III
It might appear to some anomalous after
Williams to
hold that 12-man civil juries are constitutionally required in
federal cases. As Judge Wisdom has argued,
"[w]hat
Page 413 U. S. 187
ever one considers the role of a civil jury and whatever
importance attaches to that role, . . . no one has ever contended
that the function of the civil jury is
more important than
that of the criminal jury."
Cooley v. Strickland Transportation Co., 459 F.2d 779,
781 (1972).
There is, of course, force to that point and a certain
rudimentary logic to the proposition that, if a man is entitled to
a jury of only six when his very liberty is at stake, he should not
be entitled to more when mere property hangs in the balance. But
our function is limited to interpreting the Constitution. We are
not empowered to decide as a matter of policy the cases in which
12-man juries should be guaranteed. As argued above, our prior
decision on jury size arose in the state context and involved
interpretation of a different constitutional provision. That
decision simply does not require that we approve six-man federal
juries in civil cases. As Mr. Justice Sutherland observed almost 40
years ago when the common law jury was under attack from a
different source,
"this court in a very special sense is charged with the duty of
construing and upholding the Constitution; and in the discharge of
that important duty, it ever must be alert to see that a doubtful
precedent be not extended by mere analogy to a different case if
the result will be to weaken or subvert what it conceives to be a
principle of the fundamental law of the land."
Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. at
293 U. S.
485.
I find that response dispositive. The Constitution is, in the
end, a unitary, cohesive document, and every time any piece of it
is ignored or interpreted away in the name of expedience, the
entire fragile endeavor of constitutional government is made that
much more insecure. This observation is as pertinent to the Seventh
Amendment as it is to the First, or Fourteenth, or any other part
of the Constitution. Indeed, as the
Dimick court held,
"[m]aintenance of the jury as a factfinding body is of
Page 413 U. S. 188
such importance and occupies so firm a place in our history and
jurisprudence that any seeming curtailment of the right to a jury
trial should be scrutinized with the utmost care."
Id. at
293 U. S. 486.
In my judgment, my Brethren have not given this curtailment of the
jury right the careful scrutiny which the problem demands. I must,
therefore, respectfully dissent.
[
Footnote 2/1]
Although I consider it ultimately irrelevant to the
constitutional issue,
see infra at
413 U. S. 180,
it is still of some interest that variations in jury size do seem
to produce variations in function and result. It is, of course,
intuitively obvious that the smaller the size of the jury, the less
likely it is to represent a fair cross-section of community
viewpoints. What is less obvious, but nonetheless statistically
demonstrable, is that the difference between a 12-man and six-man
jury in this respect is quite dramatic, and likely to produce
different results. Professor Zeisel, perhaps our leading authority
on the civil jury, has demonstrated this fact through use of a
model in which he assumes that 90% of a hypothetical community
shares the same viewpoint, while 10% has a different viewpoint. Of
100 12-man juries picked randomly from such a community, 72 would
have at least one member of the minority group, while, of the 100
six-man juries so selected, only 47 would have minority
representation. Moreover, the differences in minority
representation produce significant differences in result. Professor
Zeisel posits a case in which the community is divided into six
groups of equal size with respect to the monetary value they place
on a given personal injury claim, with one-sixth evaluating the
claim at $1,000, another sixth at $2,000, etc. He also assumes that
the damages a jury will award lie close to the average assessment
of the damages each individual juror would choose. If one accepts
these hypotheses,
"[i]t is easy to see that the six-member juries show a
considerably wider variation of 'verdicts' than the twelve-member
juries. For instance, 68.4% of the twelve-member jury evaluations
fall between $3,000 and $4,000, while only 51.4% of the six-member
jury evaluations fall in this range. Almost 16% of the six-member
juries will reach verdicts that will fall into the extreme levels
of more than $4,500 or less than $2,500, as against only a little
over 4% of the twelve-member juries. The appropriate statistical
measure of this variation is the so-called standard deviation. The
actual distribution pattern will always depend on the kind of
stratification that is relevant in a particular case, but, whatever
the circumstances, the six-member jury will always have a standard
deviation that is greater by about 42%. This is the result of a
more general principle that is by now well known to readers of such
statistics as public opinion polls -- namely, that the size of any
sample is inversely related to its margin of error."
Zeisel, . . . And Then There Were None: The Diminution of the
Federal Jury, 38 U.Chi.L.Rev. 710, 717-718 (1971).
[
Footnote 2/2]
See infra at
413 U.S.
176-177.
[
Footnote 2/3]
Even in the absence of constitutional difficulties, I view this
course as an improper use of the local rulemaking power. In
Miner v. Atlass, we held that the statutory procedures
surrounding the rulemaking process were
"designed to insure that basic procedural innovations shall be
introduced only after mature consideration of informed opinion from
all relevant quarters, with all the opportunities for comprehensive
and integrated treatment which such consideration affords."
363 U.S.
641,
363 U. S. 650
(1960). We therefore declined to construe the local rulemaking
power as extending to such innovations.
Ibid. The Court
seeks to escape the force of this precedent with the assertion that
"the requirement of a six-member jury is not a
basic procedural
innovation.'" I find this statement startling, to say the least.
Whatever one's view of the constitutionality of six-man juries,
surely it cannot be doubted that this shift in a practice of seven
hundred years' standing, likely to affect the outcome of hundreds
of cases, see 413
U.S. 149fn2/1|>n. 1, supra, and infra at
413 U. S. 177,
constitutes a "basic procedural innovation."
[
Footnote 2/4]
Indeed, the Seventh Amendment is one of the few remaining
provisions in the Bill of Rights which has not been held to be
applicable to the States.
See, e.g., Hardware Dealers Mutual
Fire Ins. Co. v. Glidden Co., 284 U.
S. 151,
284 U. S. 158
(1931);
Wagner Electric Mfg. Co. v. Lyndon, 262 U.
S. 226,
262 U. S. 232
(1923).
[
Footnote 2/5]
The author of this opinion believes that the Fourteenth
Amendment was intended to incorporate fully Sixth Amendment
guarantees.
See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.
S. 145 (1968). Nonetheless, the fact remains that this
Court has yet to decide the issues posed by majority verdicts and
six-man juries in a purely Sixth Amendment context.
[
Footnote 2/6]
See also George Washington's contemporaneous
explanation in a letter to Lafayette for the absence of a jury
guarantee ("[I]t was only the difficulty of establishing a mode
which should not interfere with the fixed modes of any of the
States that induced the Convention to leave it as a matter of
future adjustment") 3 Farrand 298; and Edmund Randolph's
explanation to the Virginia Convention ("I will risk my property on
the certainty, that [Congress] will institute the trial by jury in
such manner as shall accommodate the conveniences of the
inhabitants of every state: the difficulty of ascertaining this
accommodation was the principal cause of its not being provided
for") 3 Farrand 309.
[
Footnote 2/7]
I do not mean to suggest that isolated experiments with juries
of different sizes cannot be found in colonial history. Indeed,
when one considers the number of jurisdictions and the span of time
involved, it would be surprising if there were no aberrations. Some
scholars have argued from the few cases involving juries consisting
of more or less than 12 that there was no common law requirement as
to jury size in the Colonies.
See, e.g., Fisher, The
Seventh Amendment and the Common Law: No Magic in Numbers, 56
F.R.D. 507 (1973). In fact, however, the cases cited for this
proposition seem to constitute no more than the exceptions which
prove the rule.
Fisher, for example, bases his thesis on the fact that Maryland
used a jury of 10 in one case in 1682 and a jury of 11 in another
case that year, and that Delaware used juries of 11, 7, and 13 in
three cases tried between 1676 and 1705.
See id. at 530.
But when one remembers that thousands of civil and criminal cases
were tried during the pre-revolutionary period, these five
apparently isolated instances prove virtually nothing. Similarly,
South Carolina's provision for a jury of less than 12 in the "Court
for the Trial of Slaves and Persons of Color,"
ibid., was
obviously limited to the peculiar circumstance of persons who, at
that time, were considered to be without civil rights of any kind.
Fisher's reliance on petitions from the citizens of Anson, Orange,
and Rowan Counties for juries of less than 12,
ibid., is
unaccountable, since these petitions were, in fact, rejected and
the smaller juries never impaneled.
See id. at 530-531, n.
87.
Fisher's final example is particularly revealing. Just prior to
the Revolution, New Jersey passed an act providing for six-man
juries in small-court cases.
Id. at 531. The law was
challenged in the case of
Holmes v. Walton, in 1780, in
which the defendant argued
"the jury sworn to try the above cause and on whose verdict
judgment was entered, consisted of six men only, when, by the laws
of the land, it should have consisted of twelve men."
Id. at 532 n. 88. The New Jersey Supreme Court rejected
this argument and upheld the verdict. A scant month later, however,
the New Jersey Legislature reversed this decision and reinstituted
the right to 12-man juries.
See ibid.
[
Footnote 2/8]
The Court asserts that
"[w]hat is required for a 'jury' is a number large enough to
facilitate group deliberation combined with a likelihood of
obtaining a representative cross-section of the community."
See ante at
413 U. S. 160
n. 16. We can bypass for the moment the intriguing question of
where the majority finds this requirement in the words of the
Seventh Amendment. For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that,
upon examination, this "test" turns out to be no test at all. It
may be that the ideal jury would provide "enough" group
deliberation and community representation. But the question in this
case is how much is "enough." Obviously, the larger the jury the
more group representation it will provide.
See 413
U.S. 149fn2/1|>n. 1,
supra. Merely observing that a
certain level of group representation is constitutionally required
fails to tell us what that level is. And, more significantly, it
fails to tell us how to go about deciding what that level is.
[
Footnote 2/9]
It thus will not do to argue, as has my Brother WHITE, that one
"can get off the
slippery slope' before he reaches the bottom.
. . ." Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S.
78, 399 U. S. 91 n.
28 (1970). This begs the question how one knows at what point to
get off -- a question for which the Court apparently has no
answer.
MR. JUSTICE POWELL, dissenting.
I share the view of MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS that local Rule 13(d)(1)
is incompatible with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and this
would require a reversal of the present case. Accordingly, I do not
reach the constitutional issue under the Seventh Amendment which is
addressed by MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL in their
scholarly opinions,
ante pp.
413 U. S. 149,
413 U. S. 166.
Cf. Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.
S. 356,
406 U. S.
366-380 (1972) (opinion of POWELL, J.).