Post-Conviction Relief for Immigrants

(A)  Federal Law.  The right to trial by jury is one of the most fundamental constitutional rights that is designed to prevent governmental oppression and arbitrary law enforcement.[289]  The public interest in having a criminal trial conducted by juries is so important that a criminal defendant may not waive the right to a trial by jury except under limited circumstances.[290]  The prosecutor must consent and an express waiver must be given personally by the defendant and will never be presumed from a silent record.[291] 

            Because trial by jury is the constitutionally preferred method to resolve criminal trials, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that courts should not lightly approve jury trial waivers:

Trial by jury is the normal and, with occasional exceptions, the preferable mode of disposing of issues of fact in criminal cases above the grade of petty offenses.  In such cases the value and appropriateness of jury trial have been established by long experience, and are not now to be denied. Not only must the right of the accused to a trial by a constitutional jury be jealously preserved, but the maintenance of the jury as a fact-finding body in criminal cases is of such importance and has such a place in our traditions, that, before any waiver can become effective, the consent of government counsel and the sanction of the court must be had, in addition to the express and intelligent consent of the defendant.  And the duty of the trial court in that regard is not to be discharged as a mere matter of rote, but with sound and advised discretion, with an eye to avoid unreasonable or undue departures from that mode of trial or from any of the essential elements thereof, and with a caution increasing in degree as the offenses dealt with increase in gravity.[292]

[289] See Duncan v. Louisana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968).

[290] See Patton v. United States, 281 U.S. 276 (1930).

[291] See United States v. Saadya, 750 F.2d 1419 (9th Cir. 1985).

[292] Patton, 281 U.S. at 312-313 (emphasis added).