Jury selection

Jury selection

• 6000 dikastai (sing. dikastes) 

• Male citizens over 30

• No debts to state

• Aspiring dikastai swear the juror’s oath at beginning of the year

Juror’s bronze pinakion, with name, patronymic ( father's name), and deme (“tribe”) 

Step 1

• On day of trial: Citizens from the pool of 6000 put their pinakia in baskets at the base of the kleroterion 

kleroterion, allotment machine that assigned jurors to the courts using black and white mmarbles

Dikastic tokens redeemed for salary

Lotteries or sortition

• The system prevents the possibility of bribery or intimidation of the jurors.

• Selected dikastai divided into groups: one group for every active courtroom, randomly and at the last minute. 

• Elaborate checks to ensure that only authorized jurors entered each courtroom.

Order in the court 

• There was no formal mechanism for correcting a speaker's misrepresentation of the laws

• knowledgeable members of the jury and the crowd could heckle litigants whose speeches were misleading.

The trial

• After an attempt at arbitration: anakrisis (preliminary hearing) e.g. failed arbitration in “Against Konon”

• A graphê: public trial by “anyone who wished” usually on charges that were related to public interest

• A dikê: private trial by party directly affected

What happened in a trial?

• The trial began with a herald’s announcement. 

• the prosecutor, then defendant, addressed the jurors from a platform. 

• The klepsydra, or waterclock, timed the speeches 

• klepsydra stopped when laws or witness testimonies were read out.