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The Scottish government was forced to drop plans to axe jury trials today as its coronavirus bill jumped its first parliamentary hurdle. The SNP administration confirmed it had dropped the measure after an outcry from opposition parties and senior lawyers following the publication of the Coronavirus (Scotland) Bill on Tuesday. The bill originally proposed trials going ahead without juries to “ensure that criminal justice systems can continue to operate during the coronavirus restrictions”. But the move was branded “draconian” by the Scottish Criminal Bar Association and The Law Society of Scotland insisted there was not “sufficient justification” for ending the...

PHOENIX (AP) - An appeals court has rejected former Sheriff Joe Arpaio's bid to have a jury, rather than a judge, decide whether he is guilty of a criminal contempt-of-court charge for disobeying a court order in a racial profiling case. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Arpaio didn't show that his request warranted its intervention in the case.

The Legal Cheek blog reported on Monday that a Staten Island lawyer named Richard Luthmann has invoked what he thinks is his right to a trial by combat to resolve a case in which he is accused of helping a client commit fraud. The case involved his advice to the client In question to transfer assets beyond the reach of a group of creditors who had won a previous judgement against said client. The creditors are seeking punitive damages against Luthmann for helping to facilitate the alleged fraud scheme.

In a groundbreaking ruling that appears to be a reversal of some three decades of legal precedent in Tennessee, the state Supreme Court has ruled that juveniles are not entitled to a jury trial. State Supreme Court Justice Cornelia A. Clark took just six pages to articulate the court's reasoning. The backdrop for the landmark decision was an aggravated robbery conviction lodged against a then 17-year-old Fulton High School student. Knox County Assistant Public Defender Bob Edwards, who represented Clinton Burns III in the case, said Wednesday he was disappointed in the high court's decision. "This is a complete reversal,"...

If anyone knows of any links, I'd be mighty grateful.

The Ins and Outs of Jury Nullificationby Jean F. Drew If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states then that juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that once was the citizen’s safeguard of liberty, -- for the saddest epitaph which can be carved in the memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time. -- Thomas Jefferson The Framers of the Constitution of the United States were...