Juries and the transformation of criminal justice in France in the nineteenth & twentieth centuries

Donovan takes a comprehensive approach to the history of the jury in modern France by investigating the legal, political, socio-cultural, and intellectual aspects of jury trial from the Revolution to the 20th century.

He demonstrates that, through their decisions, these juries helped shape reform of the nation's criminal justice system.

He argues that from their introduction in 1791 as an expression of the sovereignty of the people up to the early 1900s, juries often acted against the wishes of the political and judicial authorities, despite repeated governmental attempts to manipulate their composition.