The Jury System

There has been much talk of "reform" in the jury system. Cases are too complex, the argument goes; jurors are too easily swayed; it boils down to a popularity contest among lawyers. Needless to say, the successful trial lawyers aren't the ones leading the movement. For they know, as would anyone who has prowled the nation's courtrooms--or even watched "Perry Mason" win yet again--that there's a reason the system has remained intact in principle for centuries: It works.

T. Summer Robinson in Emily Couric, The Trial Lawyers, 1988