Introduction

Jury decision-making has long been a focus for legal scholars and behavioral scientists. Juries hold significant power: their verdicts determine a person’s freedom, liability, or even life. The Constitution of the United States of America embodies the principles of liberty and justice and, through its first ten Amendments, guarantees civil rights and liberties to the individual. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to an impartial jury in criminal prosecutions, while the Seventh Amendment preserves the right to jury trial in federal civil cases where the value in controversy exceeds twenty dollars.

Over the past several decades, the number of jury trials in U.S. courts has declined sharply, a trend observed well before the COVID-19 pandemic and that appeared to be accelerated by it (Hannaford-Agor & Moffett, 2023; Landsman, 1999). The accelerating decline represents more than a statistical trend; it evidences a transformation in how the American legal system resolves disputes and administers justice. What was a cornerstone of democratic governance and civic participation has, in practice, become increasingly rare. Hannaford-Agor and Moffett (2023) document this erosion with precision: 2% of felony cases, 1% of misdemeanor cases, and fewer than 1% of civil cases are disposed by jury trial (p. 4). These figures reveal that the jury’s role as public conscience and constitutional safeguard has become more symbolic than operational. This warrants a critical review of the American jury’s institutional legitimacy, as the mechanisms through which citizens participate directly in legal decision-making and develop trust in legal processes have been profoundly diminished (Gastil et al., 2010; Hans et al., 2014; Tyler, 2006).

Between 2007 and 2019, state court jury trials decreased from 148,558 to 125,222 in absolute terms. When adjusted for population growth, the decline becomes more meaningful: the jury trial rate dropped from 58.6 per 100,000 people to 37.7, a 26% decline in per capita trial rates over twelve years. This decline is consistent with several converging systemic pressures: expanded plea-bargaining practices, increased case settlements, court policies prioritizing efficiency over traditional adjudication, and mounting costs and uncertainties associated with proceeding to trial (Hannaford-Agor & Moffett, 2023).

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed this gradual decline into a precipitous collapse. In 2020, jury trials plummeted to approximately 33,880, roughly 27% of the 2019 volume, with most occurring before the March 13, 2020, national emergency declaration (pp. 3-4). Beyond that threshold, jury trial activity averaged an estimated 233 per month nationwide.

The overarching trend shows a steady, and in some cases accelerating, decline in jury trial frequency, interrupted by a significant COVID-19 shock that appears to have reset expectations for trial volume and raised valid questions about what post-pandemic normalization will look like. Although the data allow some generalizations, approximately 50% of jury trials in criminal courts involve felony crimes, 20% involve misdemeanor crimes, and the remaining portion involves civil trials and other matters. Empaneling juries to decide these matters is no small undertaking: estimates from the 2007 State-of-the-States survey indicate that approximately 1.5 million empaneled jurors were selected from roughly 32 million summonses issued to citizens for jury duty, a yield rate of less than 5% (Mize et al., 2007).

The empirical study of jurors and jury decision-making proceeds along two primary pathways. The first, and most prevalent, is the scientific pathway, in which scholars apply formal social science methods to examine how jurors and juries behave. Devine’s (2012) body of work exemplifies this tradition, encompassing experiments, surveys, simulations, and archival analyses designed to generate systematic, generalizable evidence about individual and group-level decision processes. This pathway places strong emphasis on experimental design and empirical rigor; however, theory development within this tradition has been comparatively limited. As Devine (2012) observes, relatively few scholars integrate empirical findings into cohesive theoretical frameworks explaining how juries operate, resulting in a literature characterized by extensive empirical output but comparatively limited theoretical synthesis (p. 2).

The second pathway is theoretical, focusing on models that explain how jurors reason, interact, and reach collective decisions. Rather than generating new empirical data, this work synthesizes existing findings into conceptual frameworks that specify the cognitive, social, and institutional mechanisms underlying jury decision-making. Although less common than empirical inquiry, this pathway has produced many of the field’s most influential models, including narrative, mathematical, and group-process theories that continue to structure contemporary jury research.

This work argues that existing jury decision-making models are incomplete because they omit macro-level institutional context, particularly declining public trust in courts, rising affective polarization, and generational shifts in civic orientation, which systematically alter juror cognition, motivation, and deliberation behavior. Consistent with the position advanced by most scholars, this work does not offer sweeping conclusions regarding the state of the American jury, its long-term viability, or its normative merits (Devine, 2012, p. 3).