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Comment by matasar | Hacker News Reader

That's not true. Civil cases can have a jury.

Yes, this is true. It's in the U.S. Constitution, in fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_trial#Civil_trial_procedur...

The right to trial by jury in a civil case is addressed by the 7th Amendment, which provides: "In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

Though there are also details that matter. Here's one:

The right to a jury trial in civil cases does not extend to the states, except when a state court is enforcing a federally created right, of which the right to trial by jury is a substantial part.

Can we have a source please, from either of you?

it's common knowledge that many juries have ruled in favor of plaintiffs and defendants in lots of civil cases. No one needs to cite anything for this.

There's lots of common knowledge out there. The common knowledge which is true ought to be easily citeable. ;)

Yep, that's right, that's true too.

If you type "Jury trial" into bing, it #2's "in civil cases" and for that you get:

   U.S. Constitution extend the rights to trial by jury
   to include the right to jury trial for both criminal 
   and civil matters and a grand jury for serious cases

But see, I suppose there are some places where even a conversation like this could get us in jail, so maybe we shouldn't be having it... I don't know...

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