This 3-page undergrdaute essay considers the English origins of the American right to a trial by jury and to a quick and fair trial, as well as the right to be indicted only upon probable cause. This essay examines the origin of each of these three American laws separately, and concludes that the meanings and intentions behind all three laws have become altered since they were originally created in the Magna Carta. Originally, all three laws had been created to check the power of the crown, a situation not applicable to current American government reality. Secondly, all three laws did not lead to greater justice; debates about them continue to today. All three have been circumvented in history by leaders. Thirdly, it should be understood that American colonists creating what would become the American justice system used English-derived laws to create a system which they hoped would be more just than the English system they saw as increasingly corrupt and increasingly veering away from the ideals stated in English law.
