Hello, I’m Zhan Qingyun.

Last time we discussed discovery and evidence collection.

If discovery ends without settlement, the exciting trial familiar from legal dramas finally approaches.

Before trial, the parties may still fight over who will decide: a judge in a bench trial or a jury.

Juries are distinctive to common-law systems. Outside America they now serve mainly in criminal trials, while U.S. civil litigation still uses them extensively.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants a constitutional right to jury trial.

Even so, the Supreme Court does not extend it to every petty offense. Jury selection and trial consume public money and citizens’ time.

The right therefore applies to serious offenses, generally those punishable by more than six months’ imprisonment.

The right to a civil jury is more complicated.

It preserves ancient features America inherited from English common law, so a little history is necessary.

Early England had not only common-law courts but courts of equity.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, people dissatisfied with the limited or formal remedies of ordinary courts petitioned the king.

Common law often reduced every wrong to money and offered a narrow set of remedies.

Its formalism recognized official documents and contracts but not every customary or equitable interest. Petitioners appealed to the king, who referred matters to the Lord Chancellor, creating a separate Court of Chancery.

Equity supplemented common law, resolving problems ordinary courts could not and considering particular circumstances with less rigid formality.

England eventually merged the systems. America nevertheless preserves a constitutional distinction: claims historically tried at common law can generally receive a jury.

Historically equitable matters, associated with the elite chancellor rather than ordinary juries, are decided by judges.

Which cases belong to each tradition?

Many cases debate the line, but a rough rule is that claims solely for money may go to a jury.

When the plaintiff seeks equitable relief—requiring someone to perform an obligation or act, rather than pay—the judge decides.

Suppose I contract to teach on Vistopia and later quit because people criticize me. Vistopia sues for breach and asks only for damages.

Either side may request a jury on that monetary claim.