The Potomac School Alumni Office
cordially invites you to an evening with
Renée Lettow Lerner '83
author of
The Jury - A Very Short Introduction
Tuesday, February 6, Arundel Family Library
6:30 - 7:00 pm
Hors d'Oevurves & Drinks
7:00 - 8:00 pm
Reading & Discussion with Renée Lettow Lerner '83
Moderated by Dr. Paul Lettow '95
8:00 pm
Dessert and Coffee
Renee will be signing books at the end of the program. You can buy your book at the program, online, or wherever you buy your books!
RSVP for the event
ABOUT THE BOOK
From ancient Athens to modern Asia, cultures have wanted ordinary people involved in making legal decisions. This Very Short Introduction charts juries from antiquity through the English-speaking world and beyond to Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Today, juries have become a symbol of democracy and popular legitimacy.
But in English-speaking countries, jury trials are declining. Civil juries have been virtually abolished everywhere except the United States, and plea bargaining is taking the place of criminal jury trials. In this book, Renée Lettow Lerner describes the benefits and challenges of using juries, including jury nullification. She considers how innovations from non-English-speaking countries may be key to the survival of citizen participation in the legal system.
Along the way, the book tells how a small German state invented a way of using jurors that is now found around the world. And it reveals why some defendants preferred to be crushed to death by weights rather than convicted by a jury.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Renée Lettow Lerner is the Donald Phillip Rothschild Research Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School. She writes about and teaches legal history, criminal procedure, and comparative law.
Renée has spent twenty-five years researching the jury—past, present, and around the world. She studied English legal history as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. She graduated from Yale Law School and was a law clerk to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court and to Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Renée was a witness in a murder case in Paris, France, before a mixed panel of professional judges and lay jurors. She was in the jury pool for a criminal case in Washington, DC but was struck after the prosecutor asked her what courses she taught as a law professor, and she said criminal procedure.
Moderator: Dr. Paul Lettow '95
Paul Lettow is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on US foreign policy, US grand strategy, and strategic competition with China and Russia. He is concurrently a senior fellow at the America in the World Consortium, a partnership of universities (Duke, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Texas at Austin) dedicated to policy-relevant research. Dr. Lettow has a JD from Harvard Law School, a DPhil in international relations from Oxford University (Christ Church), and an AB in history from Princeton University.