Most American trials, criminal and civil, are brief routine affairs, not prolonged proceedings

Evidence

A study of criminal trials during the late nineteenth century found that most defendants were tried “in slapdash and routine ways, in trials that lasted a few hours or a few minutes at best.”° Because criminal defendants today are guaranteed legal representation at trial, they are better able to mount a defense than were their counterparts a century ago. Still, unless the charges against a defendant are very serious, or the defendant demands a jury trial, most contemporary criminal trials do not last long either. In Philadelphia, for example, felony trials conducted without a jury averaged less than an hour.® Most trials in civil cases are also short, particularly when the amount at stake is small. In the Los Angeles Small Claims Court, for example, the average trial in contested cases lasted only 8.9 minutes, with the shortest trial taking only 1 minute.’ — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1285

Categorization

• CANDY: An average LA Small Claims trial of 8.9 minutes — with one lasting a single minute — is the kind of stat you’d drop at a dinner party to puncture courtroom-drama assumptions.
• XREF: Connects to the course’s question of whether procedural safeguards like jury trial are actually exercised, or routinely waived in practice. — connects to: Typical American trials are brief and routine, unlike televised dramas — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 803; Typical trials are brief and routine, unlike the dramatic trials shown on television. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1284; Most civil cases are decided during the pretrial phase, not at trial (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Trials and appeals are rare exceptions to routine case disposition in U.S. courts #corroborates (0.95) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1601
• Most civil cases are decided during the pretrial phase, not at trial #expands (0.90)
• Civil cases are typically settled in the shadow of potential trial #qualifies (0.90) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2161
• Most civil cases are settled rather than adjudicated through trial #qualifies (0.85) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1045
• Pretrial proceedings, not trials, determine most civil case outcomes #expands (0.85) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2200
• Most trial judges do not preside at a jury trial on a typical day #expands (0.85) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 561
• Guilty pleas, not trials, now dominate criminal case disposition #qualifies (0.75)
• Plea bargains have pushed jury trials into a small corner of the criminal process #qualifies (0.75) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 845