Unit Web Activity Lesson Plans

Unit 1: Introduction to Law and the Legal System
Jury of Your Peers

Overview

This lesson is designed to help students learn the requirements for jury duty in the state in which they live. They will discover how jurors are selected, who is exempt, how long they serve, etc. This lesson addresses only trial juries, not grand juries.

Correlation to Textbook

This lesson correlates to Unit One, Chapter 5: The Court System in the Street Law textbook.

Correlation to the National Standards for Civics and Government

V.C.7. Civic responsibilities: Students should be able to evaluate, take, and defend positions on issues regarding civic responsibilities of citizens in American constitutional democracy.

Objectives

At the conclusion of this lesson, students will be able to:

1. Identify where juries are mentioned in the body of the U.S. Constitution and in the Bill of Rights.
2. Explain the requirements for jury duty in their state.
3. Evaluate whether the juror selection process in their state leads to impartial juries.
4. Define the terms petit jury and grand jury.

Before You Teach This Lesson

1. Before you take your students to the computer lab or assign this lesson for independent research, go through it yourself to make sure that it suits your purposes and that the link to your state works.
2. If you are in Wyoming or Tennessee, there is no link for your state due to a lack of information at the time of publication. You may want to do a search yourself to see if the state's Web site has been updated since this lesson was written, or you can choose a neighboring state you want your students to learn about.
3. This lesson may be done in a lab or by using one computer at the front of the classroom. You may want to provide students with a printout of the activity questions.
4. If you want your students to use data on local demographics from the U.S. Census Bureau but you don’t want to spend the time to let them browse the data, you can pull the relevant information from the Web site in advance and hand it out to the students.

Lesson Plan

1. Review the lesson outcomes with the students.
2. If a Resource Person is helping to co-teach this lesson, introduce him or her and explain how you will work together.
3. Have the students navigate around your state’s site (or do it yourself at the front of the classroom) and take notes on the answers to the questions presented.
4. Think-Pair-Share: After the students have collected information from their state or a few other states, ask them to think about the possible consequences of the jury selection and jury duty policies. Then pair them up with a partner to discuss what they think. Some students may not think of all the possible advantages or disadvantages alone, but will have more success brainstorming with a peer. Finally, ask the students to share their ideas with the class.
5. Depending on your time frame and level of knowledge about local demographics, you may want to visit the Quick Facts page of the U.S. Census Bureau Web site and look up detailed information about people who live in your city, county, or state. For example, if you live in an urban area, does your jury pool also pull from a nearby rural area? Is your community racially or ethnically diverse, or is it more homogeneous? The answers to these questions may help your students reflect on what would constitute a “jury of their peers.” If you do not have time for this step, have the students look around the classroom to make a rough assessment of the demographics of your community, or pull the information for them in advance.
6. Finally, have the students write an essay presenting their reflections and answering the question, “Based on what you learned, is it possible to find a jury of your peers?”

Suggestions for Using Resource People

• Contact the local jury commissioner to see if someone from that office can co-teach this lesson and speak to your students about jury selection.
• Contact a local bar association to ask them to recommend a trial lawyer and a prosecutor who could speak to your students about choosing a jury.

Timing of Lesson

If you do not use the U.S. Census Bureau statistics, this lesson is designed for one 45-minute class period. If you use the Census Bureau step, it will take longer. Suggested times for each section of the lesson are:

• Navigating your state's Web site and taking notes on jury selection information: 20–25 minutes
• Think-Pair-Share: 10–15 minutes
• Gathering information on the U.S. Census Bureau Web site: 15–20 minutes (optional)
• Writing essay reflecting on juror selection: homework assignment