What does the Sixth Amendment say?

0:03[MUSIC] The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants a series of rights in all criminal prosecutions. They have a right to a trial that's speedy and that's public. They have a right to a impartial jury in the particular area where the crime was committed. They have a right to be told what they're being charged with and why, to be confronted with the witnesses against them, face to face, to have the ability to bring in witnesses in their favor, and to have a lawyer's assistance to help defend them. One of the complaints the colonists had against the English Crown was that the king had gone and tried to prosecute enemies and throw them in jail, and so there is a series about half of the bill of rights is protections in criminal cases and one of the most important set of those were jury related rights. The jury was an impartial independent check. If you read the Declaration of Independence, the colonist complained that the king had used

1:05his power over judges and over their salary to make them do his bidding, and he had used special courts to deprive the colonists of juries. Juries, local people, you could appeal to their sense of common sense and their morality, and sometimes they would acquit people who they thought hadn't done anything wrong or who had only spoken the truth. The protections to make sure that that was a fair fight included making sure that there was an impartial local jury, and that there was a trial that the public could see that there was no monkey business in, and the ability to bring in a lawyer who could counteract possibly a lawyer for the government. There were cases like Zenger's trial and that of Wilkes. The colonists saw that the prosecutors, the government could try to punish somebody, but if the jury said, no, we don't think Zenger should be punished for publishing something that is true,

1:58it would establish the ability of the colonists to speak freely and to vent their complaints against the government. Many of these criminal cases they were worried about were people who basically the political opposition to the government, and they didn't think that those should be punished. The First Amendment is one set of protections for free speech and free press. Another set of protections is the Fourth Amendment protected the government from breaking in to seize these printing presses and smash them.

2:25Then the Sixth Amendment protected if they did get you to trial, that the jury could decide, no, we don't think that this is a crime. We don't think this person is guilty and ought to be punished. The people knew what the criminal laws were. They knew what the punishments were and jurors appear to have drawn very careful distinctions between someone who was factually innocent, someone who was factually guilty, but deserved mercy, and then professional criminals like highwaymen, who might deserve the death penalty. Even though the laws authorized the death penalty for a lot of crimes, it was much less commonly carried out, and both judges and juries had the ability to dispense mercy. The jury served as a check on the legislature, making too many things criminal or authorizing too heavy punishments. They checked prosecutors who might be seeking too much vengeance,

3:14and they checked judges who in the declaration of independence might be too subject to royal authority. They trusted the common sense of a layman, not just the professional lawyers. The Sixth Amendment is part of a broader set of safeguards in the Constitution, which are designed to ensure that the people rule in the government. That it's the people who are above. There's not a king. There's not someone else who is in charge.

3:40The jury trial provisions, they run through the Fifth Amendment grand jury, the Sixth Amendment criminal jury, the Seventh Amendment civil jury is all about giving people a say. I know a lot of people view jury service as a burden. People find going to vote a burden, certainly being called up for military services a burden. This is a series of burdens that we all embrace as part of being citizens.

4:04You're soon going to be 18. You're soon going to be embracing these things. Don't just grumble about it. Take it as an opportunity of being a citizen that you are the government and the government has to listen to you if you speak. The only problem is if you don't speak, if you avoid speaking, then you're leaving it for other people to rule you instead of taking up that responsibility of citizenship yourself. [MUSIC]