2010年考研英语二阅读 Text 4 原文翻译及答案解析

Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all citizens who meet minimal qualifications of age and literacy are equally competent to serve on juries; that jurors should be selected randomly from a representative cross section of the community; that no citizen should be denied the right to serve on a jury on account of race, religion, sex, or national origin; that defendants are entitled to trial by their peers; and that verdicts should represent the conscience of the community and not just the letter of the law. The jury is also said to be the best surviving example of direct rather than representative democracy. In a direct democracy, citizens take turns governing themselves, rather than electing representatives to govern for them.

许多美国人将陪审团制度视为关键民主价值观的具体体现，这些价值观包括：所有符合年龄和识字最低资格的公民都平等具备担任陪审员的能力；陪审员应从社区的代表性横截面中随机选择；不得因种族、宗教、性别或国籍而剥夺公民担任陪审员的权利；被告有权由同侪审判；裁决应代表社区的良知，而不仅仅是法律条文。陪审团也被认为是直接民主而非代议制民主的最佳现存范例。在直接民主中，公民轮流自治，而不是选举代表来代为治理。

But as recently as in 1968, jury selection procedures conflicted with these democratic ideals. In some states, for example, jury duty was limited to persons of supposedly superior intelligence, education, and moral character. Although the Supreme Court of the United States had prohibited intentional racial discrimination in jury selection as early as the 1880 case of Strauder v. West Virginia, the practice of selecting so-called elite or blue-ribbon juries provided a convenient way around this and other antidiscrimination laws.

但直到1968年，陪审团选择程序仍与这些民主理想相冲突。例如，在一些州，陪审员职责仅限于那些被认为具有较高智力、教育和道德品质的人。尽管美国最高法院早在1880年斯特劳德诉西弗吉尼亚州案中就禁止陪审团选择中的故意种族歧视，但选择所谓的精英或蓝带陪审团的做法为绕过这一及其他反歧视法律提供了便利途径。

The system also failed to regularly include women on juries until the mid-20th century. Although women first served on state juries in Utah in 1898, it was not until the 1940s that a majority of states made women eligible for jury duty. Even then several states automatically exempted women from jury duty unless they personally asked to have their names included on the jury list. This practice was justified by the claim that women were needed at home, and it kept juries unrepresentative of women through the 1960s.

该系统也未能常规将女性纳入陪审团，直到20世纪中叶。尽管女性于1898年首次在犹他州担任州陪审员，但直到1940年代，大多数州才使女性有资格担任陪审员。即便如此，除非女性个人要求将名字列入陪审团名单，否则几个州自动豁免女性担任陪审员的义务。这一做法以女性被需要在家为由，并一直使陪审团未能代表女性，直到1960年代。

In 1968, the Congress of the United States passed the Jury Selection and Service Act, ushering in a new era of democratic reforms for the jury. This law abolished special educational requirements for federal jurors and required them to be selected at random from a cross section of the entire community. In the landmark 1975 decision Taylor v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court extended the requirement that juries be representative of all parts of the community to the state level. The Taylor decision also declared sex discrimination in jury selection to be unconstitutional and ordered states to use the same procedures for selecting male and female jurors.

1968年，美国国会通过了《陪审团选拔和任职法》，开启了陪审团民主改革的新时代。该法废除了对联邦陪审员的特殊教育要求，并要求他们从整个社区的横截面中随机选择。在1975年的里程碑式裁决泰勒诉路易斯安那州案中，最高法院将陪审团必须代表社区所有部分的要求扩展到州级。泰勒裁决还宣布陪审团选择中的性别歧视违宪，并命令州对男性和女性陪审员使用相同的选择程序。