A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand jury is separate from the courts, which do not preside over its functioning.
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence, make findings of fact, and render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment.
In English law, the benefit of clergy was originally a provision by which clergymen accused of a crime could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead in an ecclesiastical court under canon law. The ecclesiastical courts were generally seen as being more lenient in their prosecutions and punishments, and defendants made many efforts to claim clergy status, often on questionable or fraudulent grounds.
The Bloody Assizes were a series of trials started at Winchester on 25 August 1685 in the aftermath of the Battle of Sedgemoor, which ended the Monmouth Rebellion in England.
Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience. In medieval Europe, like trial by combat, trial by ordeal, such as cruentation, was sometimes considered a "judgement of God" : a procedure based on the premise that God would help the innocent by performing a miracle on their behalf. The practice has much earlier roots, attested to as far back as the Code of Hammurabi and the Code of Ur-Nammu.
Assize or Assizes, in Old French originally "meeting, conference", may refer to judicial institutions or legal measures taken by those.
Anglo-Saxon law is a body of written rules and customs that were in place during the Anglo-Saxon period in England, before the Norman conquest. This body of law, along with early Medieval Scandinavian law and Germanic law, descended from a family of ancient Germanic custom and legal thought. However, Anglo-Saxon law codes are distinct from other early Germanic legal statements—known as the leges barbarorum, in part because they were written in Old English instead of in Latin. The laws of the Anglo-Saxons were the second in medieval Western Europe after those of the Irish to be expressed in a language other than Latin.
The Assize of Northampton, largely based on the Assize of Clarendon of 1166, is among a series of measures taken by King Henry II of England that solidified the rights of the knightly tenants and made all possession of land subject to and guaranteed by royal law.
Compurgation, also called trial by oath, wager of law, and oath-helping, was a defence used primarily in medieval law. A defendant could establish their innocence or nonliability by taking an oath and by getting a required number of persons, typically twelve, to swear they believed the defendant's oath. The wager of law was essentially a character reference, initially by kin and later by neighbours, often 11 or 12 men, and it was a way to give credibility to the oath of a defendant at a time when a person's oath had more credibility than a written record. It can be compared to a legal wager, which is the provision of surety at the beginning of legal action to minimize frivolous litigation.
In France, a cour d'assises, or Court of Assizes or Assize Court, is a criminal trial court with original and appellate limited jurisdiction to hear cases involving defendants accused of felonies, meaning crimes as defined in French law. It is the only French court that uses a jury trial.
Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516 (1884), was a landmark case decided by the United States Supreme Court that allowed state governments, as distinguished from the federal government, to avoid using grand juries in criminal prosecutions.
In English law, the assize of novel disseisin was an action to recover lands of which the plaintiff had been disseised, or dispossessed. It was one of the so-called "petty (possessory) assizes" established by Henry II in the wake of the Assize of Clarendon of 1166; and like the other two was only abolished in 1833.
The court of assizes is the trial court which tries the most serious crimes in the judicial system of Belgium. It is the highest Belgian court with criminal jurisdiction; as such, it is the only Belgian court that can sentence someone to life imprisonment. The courts of assizes are not permanent courts; a new court of assizes is assembled for each new trial. There is a court of assizes in each of the ten provinces of Belgium, as well as one in the arrondissement of Brussels-Capital which is not part of any province. Further below, an overview is provided of the eleven courts of assizes and their seats. They are the only courts in Belgium for which the provinces are used as territorial subdivisions. They are also the only courts in Belgium that hold jury trials. The jury acts as sole trier of fact, but decides on the penalty together with the judges. The trial by jury of certain crimes is laid down in article 150 of the Belgian Constitution. The Belgian courts of assizes have the same origin as their French namesakes.
In English law, the assize of darrein presentment was an action brought to determine who was the last patron to appoint to a vacant church benefice – and thus who could next appoint – when the plaintiff complained that he was deforced or unlawfully deprived of the right to appoint by the defendant.
In English law, the assize of mort d'ancestor was an action brought where a plaintiff claimed the defendant had entered upon a freehold belonging to the plaintiff following the death of one of his relatives. The questions submitted to the jury were, "was A seised in his demesne as of fee on the day whereon he died?" and "Is the plaintiff his next heir?" This assize enabled the heir to obtain possession, even though some other person might have a better right to the land than the deceased.
The courts of assize, or assizes, were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes exercised both civil and criminal jurisdiction, though most of their work was on the criminal side. The assizes heard the most serious cases, most notably those subject to capital punishment or, later, life imprisonment. Other serious cases were dealt with by the quarter sessions, while the more minor offences were dealt with summarily by justices of the peace in petty sessions.
The history of trial by jury in England is influential because many English and later British colonies adopted the English common law system in which trial by jury plays an important part.
The Grand Assize was a legal instrument set up in 1179 by King Henry II of England, to allow tenants to transfer disputes over land from feudal courts to the royal court.
From the Norman Conquest of 1066 to the death of King John in 1216, England was governed by the Norman and Angevin dynasties. The Norman kings preserved and built upon the institutions of Anglo-Saxon government. They also introduced new institutions, in particular, feudalism. For later developments in English government, see Government in late medieval England.
