Japan Trying Juries

An op ed piece -- Robert Precht, Japan, the Jury, N.Y. Times, Dec. 1, 2006 -- discusses Japan's reintroduction of the jury system. (It had American-style juries for 15 years, up to 1943.) Here's the article in the International Herald Tribune, which doesn't require you to log in.

Mr. Precht is the codirector of the Japanese Juries and Democracy Program of the Maureen & Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana.

Thanks: Ethan Leib at PrawfsBlawg. Prof. Leib says that he is looking at world jury systems to explore different decision systems (majority vs. supermajority, for instance).