California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Safer v. Superior Court, 124 Cal.Rptr. 174, 15 Cal.3d 230, 540 P.2d 14 (Cal. 1975):
21 'Those who wrote our constitutions knew from history and experience that it was necessary to protect against unfounded criminal charges brought to eliminate enemies and against judges too responsive to the voice of higher authority. The framers of the constitutions strove to create an independent judiciary but insisted upon further protection against arbitrary action. Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge. If the defendant preferred the commonsense judgment of a jury to the more tutored but perhaps less sympathetic reaction of the single judge, he was to have it.' (Duncan v. Louisiana (1967) 391 U.S. 145, 156, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 1451, 20 L.Ed.2d 491.)
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