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Reality dictates that not all cases are appropriate for jury trials, given the complexity of the law at stake and the potential for bias against certain groups in the majority of the population, such as landlords. Special courts for medical malpractice and complex fraud cases, for example, could be heard by judges so that inexperienced juries would not have to give up years of their life to hear about cases difficult for individuals unfamilar with medical minutiae in drug trials, or technical jargon in the case of some patent law. "Trial lawyers love drug companies: With deep pockets, poor reputations, and a customer base composed largely of people who are already sick and dying, they make the perfect targets for big-money lawsuits," wrote The National Review in an editorial about the recent conflicting verdicts received by the medical company Merck about its pain killer Vioxx. (The National Review, 2005)

However, to do away with all juries suggests that the American system of justice does not trust the decency and morality of the common individual. Barbara Gunnell offers an alternate, interesting perspective about the jury system from the point-of-view, not of an attorney or client, but a juror. "Being on a jury is many people's only experience of active citizenship, and of having a genuinely important role to play in society. Increasingly accustomed to being dispensable at work and exercising no power at all as voters, few of us have much experience outside family life of being asked our views on matters of importance." (Gunnell, 2000)

The jury system thus has a larger role in encouraging an active and engaged form of citizenship that is the glue that keeps America together. True, France, Germany and many other democratic European countries have an entirely different legal system that only occasionally uses juries. (Grenier, 1994) But, America has always had an especially inclusive tradition of democratic opinion. For this reason, trial by jury should be applied when fitting. In cases where some emotion should come into play, such as allocating the death penalty, including the voices of one's peers in the debate seems appropriate to add an additional and more expansive note of emotional understanding to the legal proceedings. Likewise, in a rape case, several opinions rather than a single judge's opinion might be a better way of determining a victim's credibility on the stand. However, in other cases, where the facts must hold sway yet the defendants are unsympathetic -- look to a judge.