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I have heard that the intent of the term "trial by peers" was that the jury should be full of people with understanding and similarly experienced to the accused

I have heard that the intent of the term "trial by peers" was that the jury should be full of people with understanding and similarly experienced to the accused, so they would be well-versed in the specific nuance and details around the accusations. Like if a banker was on trial for financial crimes, the jury should be randomly selected bankers. Jury selection today specifically selects against "peers" of the accused. (and as you also mentioned, against "peers" of anything in general :-P )

michaelmrose 9y ago
Peers in context are your fellow citizens nothing more.
- bryanrasmussen 9y ago
  Peers is a word that could be unpacked to mean more than just fellow citizens though, and to prove that it originally meant only fellow citizens runs into all the problems inherent in authorial intent multiplied by the number of people who worked on the constitution. Hence the need for supreme court interpretation. Peers in context have been interpreted to mean your fellow citizens, nothing more. Although I'd like to note that letting a jury of bankers sit on a financial crime might mean no banker ever got convicted. So the whole more exacting definition of peers argument has some definite problems.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Peers is a word that could be unpacked to mean more than just fellow citizens though, and to prove that it originally meant only fellow citizens runs into all the problems inherent in authorial intent multiplied by the number of people who worked on the constitution. No, it absolutely does not, because neither the phrase nor any alternative phrase on the subject incorporating a reference to “peers” appears in the Constitution, which instead provides (in the Sixth Amendment) for an “impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law”. (It is a common rephrasing of a guarantee—“the lawful judgment of his peers”—in Magna Carta which unmistakably was an product of the barons’ insistence that members of their formal social station should render verdicts against them.)
dragonwriter 9y ago
> I have heard that the intent of the term "trial by peers" was that the jury should be full of people with understanding and similarly experienced to the accused You have heard wrong. The term is a rephrasing of a guarantee in Magna Carta [0], and refers to the right to be judged by others of the same formal social station. [0] in one English translation, “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”

michaelmrose 9y ago

Peers in context are your fellow citizens nothing more.

bryanrasmussen 9y ago
Peers is a word that could be unpacked to mean more than just fellow citizens though, and to prove that it originally meant only fellow citizens runs into all the problems inherent in authorial intent multiplied by the number of people who worked on the constitution. Hence the need for supreme court interpretation. Peers in context have been interpreted to mean your fellow citizens, nothing more. Although I'd like to note that letting a jury of bankers sit on a financial crime might mean no banker ever got convicted. So the whole more exacting definition of peers argument has some definite problems.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Peers is a word that could be unpacked to mean more than just fellow citizens though, and to prove that it originally meant only fellow citizens runs into all the problems inherent in authorial intent multiplied by the number of people who worked on the constitution. No, it absolutely does not, because neither the phrase nor any alternative phrase on the subject incorporating a reference to “peers” appears in the Constitution, which instead provides (in the Sixth Amendment) for an “impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law”. (It is a common rephrasing of a guarantee—“the lawful judgment of his peers”—in Magna Carta which unmistakably was an product of the barons’ insistence that members of their formal social station should render verdicts against them.)

dragonwriter 9y ago

> I have heard that the intent of the term "trial by peers" was that the jury should be full of people with understanding and similarly experienced to the accused You have heard wrong. The term is a rephrasing of a guarantee in Magna Carta [0], and refers to the right to be judged by others of the same formal social station. [0] in one English translation, “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”