Jury System
陪审团制度

The word jury derives from French, “juré ”. It is mostly understood as reference to a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. In the modern system, juries act as triers of fact, while judges act as triers of law.
陪审团jury一词来源于法语的“juré ”。组成陪审团的人宣誓会为法院达成公正无私的裁决或者确定一项处罚或判决。在现代法律制度中，陪审团负责案件事实的审判，而法官则是法律依据的审判者。

A jury system dates back to 5th Century BCE Ancient Greece, where members of the Boule, or Council (and other institutions, such as judicial courts) were selected from the male citizenry by lot. The Boule (and hence the jury) were at the core of the original Athenian Democracy.
陪审团制度可以追溯到公元前5世纪的古希腊。议会或理事会以及其他机构如法院的成员从男性公民中抽签决定其成员。当时的议会，也就是现在的陪审团，在雅典民主中起到核心作用。

There are three types of jury. The “petit jury” (or “trial jury”) decides both criminal and civil cases. They can have as few as five or six members or as many as twelve. After hearing the evidence in a trial as presented by both the plaintiff and the defendant, they retire to consider a verdict. The second type is the grand jury. As many as twenty-three people may serve on one. They determine whether there is enough evidence for a criminal trial to go forward by examining evidence presented to them by a prosecutor and issuing indictments, or by investigating alleged crimes and issuing presentments. A third kind of jury is known as a coroner's jury. A coroner's jury is generally a body that a coroner can convene on an optional basis in order to increase public confidence in the coroner's finding where there might otherwise be a controversy.
陪审团可分为三类。“审判陪审团”或“小陪审团”决定刑事和民事的案件，人数少则五六人，多可达十二人。他们听取审判过程中原告和被告双方提供的证据，之后退出法庭私下考虑一项判决。第二种陪审团——“大陪审团”最多可由23人组成。他们通过查看检察官提供的证据并提起控告，或者通过调查犯罪并要求呈堂供述，来决定一起刑事案件是否继续在司法制度中审判。第三种陪审团是“验尸官陪审团”。这类陪审团由验尸官选择发起，用来增加验尸官在可能出现争议的案件中裁定的公信力。