Anatomy of a Jury, by Seymour Wishman

Anatomy of a Jury, by Seymour Wishman

The Penguin Group, 1987, 312 pages

Reviewed by: Nicholas Coyle

        Anatomy of a Jury was written by a former lawyer named Seymour Wishman. Seymour Wishman worked as both the prosecutor and defense lawyer. Through hundreds of cases he has presented before a judge, Seymour Wishman continued to practice and perfect being a criminal lawyer for twenty years. After several decades of mastering the art of being a lawyer, Wishman started to write books about law and how the judicial system operates. Seymour also wrote a novel called Nothing Personal and Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer. Anatomy of a Jury is his third written book about the criminal system.

        Seymour Wishman’s point for The Anatomy of a Jury was to explain to his readers how the justice system works, particularly in a criminal case.  Wishman intended for the book to be educational and be able to be read by anyone who is qualified to become a juror. Eventually, most people will be summoned to become a jury member, so he wants those summoned to be knowledgeable on how the jury system works. Wishman did not want to use desertions of legal abstractions, as it would lose many readers due to a lack of vividness of a court case (p. viii). He did not want to use many law connotations because some people would not be able to grasp the idea he’s trying to present. The audience of The Anatomy of a Jury is for any able body seem fit to become a jury member.