【www.pindukj.com--涉外文书】
from：
The task of determining the facts in a case often falls to a jury,a group of citizens from the community who serve as impartial arbiters ofthe facts and apply the law to the facts.The Constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial in criminal cases in the Sixth Amendment and the same right in civil cases in the Seventh Amendment.The right can be waived,however,in which case the judge becomes the ar-biter both ofquestions offact and of matters oflaw.Such trials are referred to as bench trials.
Two types ofjuries are associated with federal district courts.The grand jury is a group ofmen and women convened to determine whether there is probable cause to believe that a per-son has committed the federal crime of which he or she has been accused.Grand jurors meet periodically to hear charges brought by the U.S.attorney.Petit jurors are chosen at random from the community to hear evidence and determine whether a defendant in a civil trial has liability or whether a defendant in a criminal trial is guilty or not guilty.Federal rules call for 12 jurors in criminal cases but permit fewer in civil cases.The federal district
courts generally use six-person juries in civil cases.
Trial courts are viewed as engaging primarily in norm enforcement,whereas appellate courts are seen as having greater opportunity to make policy.Norm enforcement is closely tied to the administration ofjustice,
because all nations develop standards considered essential to a just and or-derly society.Societal norms are embodied in statutes,administrative regulations,prior court decisions,and community traditions.Criminal
statutes,for example,incorporate con-cepts of acceptable and unacceptable behavior into law.A judge deciding a case concerning an alleged violation of that law is practicing norm enforce-ment.Because cases ofthis type rarely allow the judge to escape the strict re-straints oflegal and procedural re-quirements,he or she has little chance to make new law or develop new poli-cy.In civil cases,too,judges are often
confined to norm enforcement,be-cause such litigation generally arises from a private dispute whose outcome is ofinterest only to the parties in the suit.
The district courts also play a policy-making role,however.As Amer-icans have become more litigation-conscious,disputes that were once re-solved informally are now more likely to be decided in a court of law.The courts find themselves increasingly in-volved in domains once considered private.What does this mean for the federal district courts? According to one study,“These new areas ofjudicia involvement tend to be relatively free of clear,precise appellate court and legislative guidelines;and as a conse-quence the opportunity for trial court jurists to write on a clean slate,that is,to make policy,is formidable."