7th Amendment
The 7th Amendment
"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 re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
The 7th Amendment states that any person who is accused of a crime, where the dollar amount is deemed to be valued at twenty dollars or more, has the legal right to a trial by jury. A jury trial is a panel of randomly selected citizens who will listen to the case in question and together jointly reach a decision on whether the defendant in the case is guilty or not guilty of the crime they have been charged with. The amendment also states that no Court can reexamine the facts from the case, because any decision reached by a jury will stand.
It is likely that the Founding Fathers drafted this amendment to help secure fairness within the judicial system. I believe that given the injustices that our Founding Fathers were escaping as they fled to the New World it was most likely very important to them to ensure that the government alone would not possess too much power. It would be my guess that they did not greatly trust the judges within the British system of government any more than they trusted the police powers. They may have also worried that without including their own peers from within the communities that the legal system could possibly become corrupt, as they had previously witnessed such things in their homeland.
Why is the 7th amendment important and relevant today in America? Because as Americans we are far better off with a system of justice that allows for a jury trial. I would never want a single person to hold all that power. I think to countries like China where a jury trial would be a huge improvement to the system that they utilize, where it is common to imprison innocent people on trumped up charges. We as US citizens often take the founding
"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 re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
The 7th Amendment states that any person who is accused of a crime, where the dollar amount is deemed to be valued at twenty dollars or more, has the legal right to a trial by jury. A jury trial is a panel of randomly selected citizens who will listen to the case in question and together jointly reach a decision on whether the defendant in the case is guilty or not guilty of the crime they have been charged with. The amendment also states that no Court can reexamine the facts from the case, because any decision reached by a jury will stand.
It is likely that the Founding Fathers drafted this amendment to help secure fairness within the judicial system. I believe that given the injustices that our Founding Fathers were escaping as they fled to the New World it was most likely very important to them to ensure that the government alone would not possess too much power. It would be my guess that they did not greatly trust the judges within the British system of government any more than they trusted the police powers. They may have also worried that without including their own peers from within the communities that the legal system could possibly become corrupt, as they had previously witnessed such things in their homeland.
Why is the 7th amendment important and relevant today in America? Because as Americans we are far better off with a system of justice that allows for a jury trial. I would never want a single person to hold all that power. I think to countries like China where a jury trial would be a huge improvement to the system that they utilize, where it is common to imprison innocent people on trumped up charges. We as US citizens often take the founding