"In impassioned prose, Burns argues that the decline of civil and criminal jury trials in the United States is disasterous. He lauds jury trials as public dramas that show the truth. After explaining how trials work, from opening statement to closing argument, the author traces the jury trial’s current form to nineteenth-century pracitces in England, made more democratice in America, and also discusses its much earlier medieval origins. Then he describes the delcine of the trial according to various researchers. To his credit, Burns offers suggestions for revitalizing the trial and cites numerous dramatic trials that showcased public problems, e.g. those involving labor organizer Joe Hill and radical Angela Davis. Without trials, he submits, elites would decide justice and the judicial branch would decline. . . . Burns’s well-written and well-researched book is for all interested readers."

Library Journal

"A stimulating, impassioned, well-argued defense of the continued importance of the trial."

Choice