Jurors are not necessarily a part of the state, which is why I, a fairly well-avowed anarchist, find the concept of the jury to have such appeal to my sense of individual rights.

In pre-agricultural times, for instance, a dispute might be solved by the tribal members putting their arm bands into a basket or bowl, and the disputants taking turns selecting arm bands, until 9 or twelve had been chosen. This group then became the jury.

Because disputants would know the designs of armbands of friends, those might be the first ones chosen, but as likely would be that disputants would choose from the basket the arm bands of those they believed to be most fair and wise. No judge was required.

In other instances, a dispute might be resolved by both sides presenting the facts to a group of elders.

The concept of juries predates the concept of the state: migratory bands of hunter-gatherers could use these systems of justice without any reliance on what we have come to recognize is a parasitical form of organized force, run by those who find it easier to live off the productivity of others than to participate in that productivity.

Even today, two individuals involved in a dispute can easily agree to take the matter to family members, church members (although I might argue that if a priesthood is involved, we are back to parasitism), neighbors or others, and agree on a group of jurors, without ever involving the organized thuggery we call the state.

Such a reliance on other individuals for reason and fairness is one of the cornerstones of civilisation which government schools teaches people to fear, against all common sense.

But, juries are no more tied to the state than any other function of society: it is only that the state has, over many centuries, slowly subsumed these functions as a means of control.

Thinking people must refuse to recognize any necessity of such ties, if they wish to become truly free.
IMJ