Legal Dictionary

jury

Legal Definition of jury

Noun

  1. A group of citizens randomly selected from the general population and brought together to assist justice by deciding which version, in their opinion, constitutes "the truth" given different evidence by opposing parties.

Definition of jury

Pronunciation

Etymology

    From Anglo-Norman juree, from Medieval Latin iūrāta, from Latin iūrō (“swear or take an oath”).

Noun

jury (plural juries)

  1. (law) A group of individuals chosen from the general population to hear and decide a case in a court of law.

    "And so the jury and he approached, as if this were a time of peace instead of one of the greatest world disturbances ever known in history, the question whether the prosecution had proved to the jury's satisfaction that George Joseph Smith was guilty of murder. The jury were the shield which stood between him and death, unless, to the jury's satisfaction, he was proved to be guilty. Yet while they were the shield of the man accused, they were also the Sword of the State; and if the man were proved guilty, they were the servants of the State to punish him. Their respective functions were these: he the judge, had to settle the law, and the jury must take the law from him. The jury were judges of fact."

    1952: James Avery Joyce: Justice At Work: (this edition Pan 1957) Page 92. commenting on R v Smith [1915] 84 LJKB 2153 (1914-15 All ER 262 CCA)

  2. A group of judges in a competition.

Derived terms

Verb

jury (third-person singular simple present juries, present participle jurying, simple past and past participle juried)

  1. To judge by means of a jury

References:

  1. Wiktionary. Published under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

Translation of jury in Malay

Juri

Noun

group in a court of law

  1. Juri



SHARE THIS PAGE

TOP LEGAL TERMS THIS WEEK
1.     lex situs
2.     landed property
3.     buggery
4.     lex fori
5.     lex causae
6.     AORO
7.     lex loci delicti commissi
8.     status quo
9.     Doctor of Laws
10.     Miranda warning