"Twelve men [Ed. Note:  Smaller juries now permitted] of the average of the community, comprising men of little education, men of learning and men whose learning consists only in what they have themsleves seen and heard:  the merchant, the mechanic, the farmer, the laborer:  these sit together, consult, apply their separate experience of the affairs of life to the facts proven and draw a unanimous conclusion.  This average judgment thus given it, is the great effort of the law to obtain.  It is assumed that twelve men know more of hte common affairs of life than does one man, that they can draw wiser and safer conclusions from admitted facts thus occuring, than can a single judge." - The United States Supreme Court

"Trial by jury is the glory of the law." - Blackstone