An advisory jury is a group installed by a judge to give him or her an opinion during a

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal ...

. Unlike the normal

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Juries developed in England du ...

, the advisory jury opinion is

non-binding A non-binding resolution is a written motion adopted by a deliberative body that can or cannot progress into a law. The substance of the resolution can be anything that can normally be proposed as a motion. This type of resolution is often used ...

, and the judge remains the "final arbitrator of fact and law". In

United States Federal Court The federal judiciary of the United States is one of the three branches of the federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government. The U.S. federal judiciary consists primar ...

, a case may be tried by advisory

in the case of "an action not triable of right by a jury". When a case in

federal district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

is tried with an advisory jury the court must find the facts specially and state its conclusions of law separately.

History

The use of an advisory jury is derived from the practice of the

Court of Chancery The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equ ...

of referring

issues of fact In law, a question of law, also known as a point of law, is a question that must be answered by applying relevant legal principles to interpretation of the law. Such a question is distinct from a question of fact, which must be answered by reference ...

to one of the

Common Law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...

Courts of

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

be tried by a

as a ''feigned issue''. The ''feigned issue'' was to inform the conscience of the court, and could be disregarded by the Chancellor. The ''feigned issue'' was a legal fiction by stating that a wager contract was laid between two parties interested in respectively maintaining the affirmative and the negative of certain propositions. The

Gaming Act 1845 The Gaming Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict., c. 109) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act's principal provision was to deem a wager unenforceable as a legal contract. The Act received royal assent on 8 August 1845. Sections 17 and ...

section 19 abolished the ''feigned issue'' and provided that the issue should the directly state the question of fact in dispute instead of a wager. The same abolition occurred in New York by section 72 of the

Field Code David Dudley Field II (February 13, 1805April 13, 1894) was an American lawyer and law reformer who made major contributions to the development of American civil procedure. His greatest accomplishment was engineering the move away from common ...

in 1850. In Watt v Starke (1879) the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

stated "the verdict of a jury upon an issue out of chancery is only advisory." Federal Equity Rule 23, effective 1913, provides in an equity case when a question arises that is triable by jury, a jury trial is held on the equity side without transfer to the law side of the

United States District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district co ...

.Colleton Merc. Mfg. Co. v. Savannah River Lumber Co., 280 Fed. 358 (C.C.A.4th, 1922) In 1938 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 39(c)(1) authorized the in any action not triable of right by a jury the court on motion or on its own may have any issue tried by an advisory jury.

History

References

Further reading