The American Jury—The Triumph of Our Democracy

The American Jury—The Triumph of Our Democracy
Presented by the Honorable William G. Young, Judge of the United States District Court, District of Massachusetts

The American jury is a breathtaking experiment in direct democracy. Jurors are constitutional officers. This talk explores the constitutional foundations of both our civil and criminal juries, why recourse to the jury is so rare, and how we can improve the jury experience. 

Free and open to the public, with a limited number of lunches available for attendees.
Remote attendees may attend via livestream: https://www.youtube.com/live/GvjxNAZBiPk.

About the Speaker

Judge Young has been an active trial judge for more than 25 years, serving on both the Massachusetts Superior Court (1977-85) and the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (1985-present). After receiving his A.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1962, he served two years as an officer in the United States Army. His legal career began in 1967 when he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar upon graduating from the Harvard Law School. He served as law clerk to the Honorable Raymond S. Wilkins, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. 

Following his clerkship, he practiced law as an associate and then partner at the Boston law firm of Bingham, Dana & Gould. His legal career has also included stints as a Special Assistant Attorney General and as Chief Counsel for former Massachusetts Governor Francis W. Sargent. A longtime teacher of evidence and trial advocacy, he has taught at several law schools including Harvard, Boston College, and Boston University. Commonly referred to as the Education Judge, he is active in judicial education at the Federal Judicial Center and the Flaschner Judicial Institute. 

Moreover, he volunteers much of his time to educating the bar and has been a staple at continuing legal education programs and institutions including Virginia Continuing Legal Education and the Practicing Law Institute (PLI). He has won national acclaim for his work on the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education's annual lecture series On Trial with Judge Young, which offers each fall an intensive 15-week study of trial techniques and trial evidence. 

In addition to teaching in the classroom, Judge Young has written extensively. He is the principal author of Massachusetts Evidentiary Standards (1992 through 2005 eds.) and Vols. 19 and 19A, Evidence (Mass. Practice Series 1998), and co-author of Daubert's Gatekeeper: The Role of the District Judge in Admitting Expert Testimony (Tulane Law Review), and An Open Letter to U.S. District Judges, The Federal Lawyer (July 2003).