On this Independence Day (2025), it is worthwhile to reflect on the ideals on which our country was founded. On example is the right to trial by jury. As recently summarized by the court in Texas v. Google LLC, 2025 WL 1713256 (E.D.Tex. June 18, 2025): The abrogation of the right to trial by jury…
Read More Jury Trials, the Seventh Amendment, and the Declaration of IndependenceRecently, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in Erlinger v. United States, 2024 WL 3074427 (U.S. June 21, 2024), that a criminal defendant is entitled, under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, to have a jury unanimously determine beyond a reasonable doubt whether his past offenses were committed on separate occasions for purposes of the Armed Career…
Read More A Brief History of Trial by Jury in the United States, Per the Supreme Court“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words comprise the Preamble to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which (as articulated by the National Archives) “states the…
Read More July 4th, 2020: Happy 244th Birthday, AmericaOn July 4, 1776, 243 years ago today, the Declaration of Independence was ratified by Congress. This seminal document, equal if not greater in magnitude and significance to other great historical documents (e.g., the Magna Carta), represents the first formal statement by then subjects of the British Crown of the reasons for proclaiming their reasons…
Read More Happy 243rd Birthday, America
Tropical beach with palm trees and loungers
The Declaration of Independence stands as one of the most profound, influential documents – and break-up notes – of all time. Its opening, well-known to every American schoolchild, states: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to…
Read More Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness