Americans Who’ve Served On A Jury Trust Courts More. Fewer Are Getting That Chance.

Got Jury Duty? Research Finds the Experience May Change How Americans View Courts

Most Americans have never sat on a jury, and that may be part of why trust in courts keeps falling. In 2019, 68% of Americans expressed high or moderate confidence in the Supreme Court. By March 2025, that share had collapsed to just 41%, with 59% saying they had little or no trust in the Court to act in their best interests. Tucked inside that number is a telling detail: people who have served on a jury trust courts far more than those who haven’t.

A new study from researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) at the University of Pennsylvania, published in Judicature, found that jury service was associated with greater confidence in the justice system. People who had served were more likely to see courts as fair, to trust them overall, and to view judges more favorably. As jury trials continue to disappear across the country, fewer and fewer Americans are ever getting that firsthand look at justice in action.

Supreme Court Trust Has Plummeted to a 20-Year Low

APPC has been tracking Supreme Court trust since 2005, when 75% of Americans expressed high or moderate confidence in the institution. By March 2025, only 41% felt that way. Prior APPC research points to the Court’s 2022 decision overturning the nationwide right to abortion as a significant turning point.

State courts haven’t escaped the slide either. In 2006, 62% of Americans said they trusted courts in their own state. By 2025, that had fallen to 53%. One notable bright spot: trust in state courts is far less politically divided than trust in the Supreme Court. In March 2025, 72% of Republicans expressed at least moderate trust in the Supreme Court, compared to just 18% of Democrats. For state courts, the gap nearly disappeared: 57% of Republicans and 54% of Democrats said they trusted those institutions.

Jury Service Was Linked to Higher Ratings on Trust, Fairness, and Respect for Courts

Researchers surveyed 1,363 adults in March 2025, comparing those who had served on a jury in the past five years to those who hadn’t. Participants were asked whether they thought courts favored the wealthy, were too tangled up in politics, or whether judges who make unpopular rulings should be removed. Those who pushed back hardest on those criticisms were considered to hold courts in higher regard.

People who had served on a jury came out ahead on every measure. Jury service was linked to roughly a 9-percentage-point gain in how much authority respondents felt courts deserved. For context, having strong civic knowledge overall produced a larger boost of about 14 points, but jury service was the only factor tested that showed a positive association with all three favorable attitudes at once.

Other factors didn’t show the same across-the-board pattern. Watching court-based TV shows like Law and Order was actually slightly associated with lower perceptions of court authority, even as it showed a positive association with trust. Taking a civics class in school had no meaningful effect. Being a plaintiff or defendant in a real case didn’t produce the same pattern as serving as a juror.

Fewer Trials Mean Fewer Americans Ever See a Courtroom

Jury trials have been quietly vanishing for decades. At the federal level, civil cases going to trial dropped from 5.5% in 1962 to just 0.8% by 2013. Federal criminal jury trials shrank from 8.2% to 3.6% over the same stretch. State courts tell a similar story: total jury trials fell 66% between 2007 and 2021, according to the National Center for State Courts.

Plea deals shoulder much of the blame in criminal courts. By early 2020, nearly 98% of federal convictions came from guilty pleas rather than trials. APPC’s own surveys capture the downstream effect: before 2020, an average of 9% of adults reported having served on a jury in the past five years. By 2025, that figure had been cut in half, to just 4%.

Courts Are Expanding Civics Programs as Jury Service Continues to Decline

Researchers argue the country needs new ways to give people a window into how courts actually work. Some courts are already trying. Federal civics learning centers, including the Breyer Community Learning Center in Boston, the Justice and Democracy Center of Minnesota, and the Judicial Learning Center in St. Louis, offer programming on the Constitution, landmark cases, and careers in the justice system. In New York, judges hosted more than 300 high school students in 2025 for a Summer Justice Institute. In Hawaii, a three-day program culminates in a mock trial before actual sitting judges.

Whether those efforts can meaningfully fill the gap left by vanishing jury trials remains an open question, but researchers say the need is urgent. Either way, the data indicates a court system that fewer people ever experience firsthand is one that fewer people will trust.

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Disclaimer: This article is based on findings from a survey-based observational study. Reported associations between jury service and attitudes toward courts do not establish cause and effect.

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