To Know Courts Is to Love Them?

New research shows jury service and civic education boost public understanding — and opinion — of courts.

The ability of the judiciary to function well relies on the public’s understanding of and confidence in the courts. When the public views the courts as legitimate sources of authority, it is more likely to adhere to even unpopular rulings. This adherence is crucial because, as Alexander Hamilton notes in Federalist #78,

the judiciary . . . has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgement; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgements.¹

But public trust in the judiciary is lower than it once was and continues to decline, according to our data here at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC). Any loss of confidence in the judicial system makes the rule of law more vulnerable.² It increases the risk that, in these polarized times, decisions will be viewed as partisan — and possibly ignored.

With public trust in the judiciary on the decline, jury service could stand as a bulwark of confidence. So important is the jury to our system of government that it is enshrined in the Seventh Amendment as the right to a “jury trial” and in the Sixth Amendment right, in criminal prosecutions, to an “impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” Jury service not only gives ordinary citizens a firsthand look at the justice system at work, but also involves them in the administration of justice. The effects are measurable. Our surveys show that after serving on a jury, people see courts as more legitimate, trust courts more, and view judges more positively. But a drop in the likelihood that a citizen will sit on a jury magnifies the reasons for concern. With the number of jury trials in decline, new mechanisms may be needed to help citizens “know” and appreciate their courts.

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Our surveys show that after serving on a jury, people see courts as more legitimate, trust courts more, and view judges more positively. . . . With the number of jury trials in decline, new mechanisms may be needed to help citizens “know” and appreciate their courts.

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ATTITUDES TOWARD COURTS ON THE DECLINE

The U.S. Supreme Court

Trust in the Supreme Court has declined in recent years. In March 2025, 59% of those surveyed reported having little (27%) or no (32%) trust in the U.S. Supreme Court to operate in the best interests of “people like [them].” Just 41% expressed some confidence that the Court is operating in their best interests, with 27% reporting “a moderate amount” of trust, 11% “a lot,” and only 3% “a great deal.”³

APPC has been surveying on this question since 2005, when 75% had “high” or “moderate” trust in the Supreme Court, and only 22% had “low” or “no” trust.⁴ Prior APPC research⁵ found that trust in the Court plummeted most drastically following the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. As seen in Figure 1, Americans’ trust in the Court — which was 68% in 2019⁶ — has now fallen 27 percentage points to 41%.⁷

The share of people reporting low levels of trust in the Supreme Court continues to grow. In May 2024, 55% of those surveyed reported having little or no trust in the Court.⁸ In March 2025, this figure grew to 59%.⁹ At the same time, the proportion of those with high or moderate trust continues to fall.¹⁰ And — compared to 20 years ago — nearly twice as many people say their “opinion of the Supreme Court” has declined in the past 10 years: Today, 51% report that their opinion of the Court has declined, compared with 27% in 2005.¹¹

Americans are also much less confident that U.S. Supreme Court justices make judicial decisions without considering the justices’ own personal views than in the past. Just 37% are “very” or “somewhat” confident that a new justice appointed by President Donald Trump would make decisions without considering their own personal views — down from 59% in 2005 (when the question referenced President George W. Bush). Nearly two-thirds (63%) are “not too” or “not at all” confident that a new justice would make decisions without considering their personal views, up from 37% in 2005.¹²

The public also now views Supreme Court justices’ ethics more dimly than it has in the past, though views are mixed: 44% of respondents now say the justices’ ethical practices are “very” or “somewhat” good¹³ — far more than those who considered them “very” or “somewhat” bad (19%).¹⁴

LOWER FEDERAL COURTS AND STATE COURTS

While prior research showed that courts other than the U.S. Supreme Court were usually granted a higher degree of trust,¹⁵ that picture has become more complicated. While “courts in [respondent’s state]” are viewed as significantly more trustworthy, there is now little difference in trust between “other federal courts” and the U.S. Supreme Court. These findings, drawn from an Annenberg Institutions of Democracy (AIOD) National Panel in March 2025 and shown in Figure 2, may reflect the increasing salience of other federal courts in contemporary politics. And, like the Supreme Court, there has been a decline in support over time, albeit it a smaller one. Whereas 62% expressed confidence in courts in their state in 2006,¹⁶ only 53% felt similarly in 2025.¹⁷

However, unlike attitudes toward the Supreme Court, which have divided starkly along lines of political party identification, attitudes toward lower federal courts and state courts are less polarized. For example, Figure 3 shows that 72% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents but only 18% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have at least a “moderate” amount of trust in the U.S. Supreme Court. In contrast, 57% of Republicans and 54% of Democrats felt similarly about the courts in their state. Given these differences, courts other than the Supreme Court may offer a more promising starting point for rebuilding trust.¹⁸

THE EFFECT OF JURY SERVICE

How can we help protect and reaffirm the public’s trust in the judiciary? In The Withering of Public Confidence in the Courts (2024), APPC researchers summarized studies suggesting that “to know courts is to love them” — that is, that understanding the workings of the judiciary and the unique role courts play in U.S. government may help foster greater trust in and support for the institution of the courts, especially compared to the political branches.¹⁹ In that piece, we focused on the connection between civic knowledge and attitudes toward the courts. Here, we concentrate on another means of getting to “know the courts”: jury service. Several academic studies have found that jury service affects the attitudes and behaviors of jurors themselves:

• Increased Trust in the Legal System: Pennington and Dolliver conducted surveys with jurors before and after their service in criminal cases. They found that engaging in jury deliberation and experiencing respectful treatment by legal authorities significantly enhanced jurors’ trust in courts.²⁰
• Enhanced Voter Participation: Gastil et al. found that individuals who were infrequent voters prior to serving on a jury were 4% to 7% more likely to vote in subsequent elections, suggesting that jury service may foster greater political participation.²¹
• Development of Democratic Skills: This research also found that those who served on juries paid increased attention to news media and were more frequent participants in conversations with neighbors about community issues.²²

APPC has also found numerous positive benefits of jury service. Our March 2025 study compared survey respondents who had and had not served on a jury in the past five years on three different sets of attitudes toward courts and judges.

First — to measure the level of legitimacy citizens ascribe to the courts in their state — we averaged respondents’ answers to seven survey items. We asked: “Thinking about the courts in [your state], please indicate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements”:

1. Courts tend to favor wealthy people over poor people;
2. Courts get too mixed up in politics;
3. If the courts started making a lot of rulings that most people in [respondent’s state]²³ disagree with, it might be better to do away with them altogether;
4. The right of the courts to decide certain types of controversial issues should be reduced;
5. The courts ought to be made less independent so that they listen more to what the people want;
6. Judges who consistently make unpopular decisions should be removed from their position as judges; and
7. The courts are legislating from the bench rather than interpreting the law.

We assume that those who disagree more strongly with more of these items grant the courts greater legitimacy — that is, grant them “a widely accepted mandate to render judgments for a political community.”²⁴

Second, we measured how much the public trusts the courts “to act in the best interest of people like [them].” In order to determine how much a respondent trusts courts generally, we averaged their responses to this question when it comes to the U.S. Supreme Court, lower federal courts, and courts in the respondents’ respective states.

Finally, we asked respondents to report how corrupt, trustworthy, biased, competent, and fair they think judges are in general. We averaged the responses to these five items (reversing the negative traits) to determine generally how positively respondents view the traits of judges.

Figure 4 shows the extent to which jury service is associated with these three attitudes in our 2025 survey. Respondents who reported jury service viewed the courts as more legitimate, trusted the courts more overall, and were more likely to attribute positive traits to judges (all findings control for age, education, gender, income, party identification, and racial and ethnic identity).²⁵ We also compared the effects of jury service with the effects of: higher levels of civic knowledge²⁶; higher exposure to TV programming such as Law and Order or Judge Judy that feature law and court themes; self-reported high school and college civics courses; and whether the respondent was a plaintiff or defendant in a court proceeding over the past five years.²⁷

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Respondents who reported jury service viewed the courts as more legitimate, trusted the courts more overall, and were more likely to attribute positive traits to judges.

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Of the five explanations, only jury duty was positively associated with an increase in all three of these positive attitudes (i.e., increased legitimacy, increased trust, and more positive views of judge traits). In Figure 4, the color blue indicates a statistically significant positive difference, the point within each blue bar indicates the estimated effect of a given item, and the bar indicates the 99% confidence interval around that estimate. For example, moving from least to most civic knowledge increases legitimacy by approximately 14 percentage points, while moving from having no experience with jury service to having served on a jury increases legitimacy by approximately 9 percentage points.

DECLINE IN JURY SERVICE

These findings suggest that the dramatic decline in the numbers of jury trials, both in civil and criminal cases, is particularly problematic. At the federal level, the number of civil cases going to trial dropped from 5.5% in 1962 to 0.8% by 2013, while federal criminal jury trials shrank from 8.2% to 3.6% in the same period.²⁸ In state courts, the rate of civil jury trials declined from around 1.8% in 1976 to between 0.6% and 0.9% by 2019.²⁹ And those trends have continued in recent years — dropping by 68% for civil trials and 51% for criminal trials between 2001 and 2025.³⁰ Jury trials have become exceptions — not the norm — in U.S. litigation.

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These findings suggest that the dramatic decline in the numbers of jury trials, both in civil and criminal cases, is particularly problematic. . . . Fewer jury trials means fewer jurors being summoned or serving.

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Part of this decline stems from structural changes. In civil matters, mandatory arbitration clauses, damage caps, and procedural rules such as summary judgment divert cases from trial.³¹ And, with litigation costs rising, alternative dispute resolution is an increasingly popular way to handle cases out of court.³² In criminal cases, the widespread use of plea bargaining has led to fewer jury trials. By early 2020, nearly 98% of federal convictions were resolved by guilty pleas rather than trial,³³ up from 96.4% in 2013.³⁴ Similarly, in state court, plea bargaining accounts for 95% of criminal convictions.³⁵ These mechanisms reduce public exposure to jury service. Additionally, lawyers increasingly lack experience with jury trials and are less prepared to litigate them (and eventually to oversee them as judges).³⁶ This may lead to even fewer trials and greater pressure to settle or plead out.³⁷

Fewer jury trials means fewer jurors being summoned or serving. Pew Research found that between 2006 and 2016, the number of people called for federal jury duty decreased by 37%, from 307,204 to 194,211.³⁸ The number of people actually selected for jury duty dropped by 39%, from 71,578 to 43,697.³⁹ Separately, the National Center for State Courts has reported that, in 2021, total jury trials across participating state courts had declined by 66%, from 148,558 trials in 2007 to 48,764 in 2021.⁴⁰ Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the trial rate per 100,000 population had fallen by 26% between 2007 and 2019.⁴¹

Nationally representative surveys of U.S. adults between 2006 and 2025 show a similar pattern. While, prior to 2020, an average of 9% of adults reported serving on a jury in the past five years, only 4% reported doing so in 2025. Together, these figures confirm a significant decline in jury participation — a critical means of getting to “know the courts” in the U.S. legal system.

MOVING FORWARD: EXPANDING CIVIC EDUCATION

As jury service continues to decline, identifying alternative ways for the public to learn about the courts becomes increasingly important. As shown in Figure 4, jury service is associated with higher perceived legitimacy, greater trust, and more favorable evaluations of judicial traits. Yet citizens have fewer opportunities to serve as jury trials become less common. And although television viewership is positively associated with trust in the courts, it is almost negatively associated with perceptions of court legitimacy. By contrast, civic knowledge has consistently been shown to correlate with support for judicial legitimacy.⁴² To this end, we urge that public education about the judicial system — and our system of government, as a whole — should be an essential focus.

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[C]ivic knowledge has consistently been shown to correlate with support for judicial legitimacy. To this end, we urge that public education about the judicial system — and our system of government, as a whole — should be an essential focus.

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Efforts to expand civic education should begin by rethinking the traditional divide between K–12 instruction and adult civic learning. For too long, these domains have been treated separately, limiting the broader reach and long-term impact of civic education. A more integrated approach would recognize that schools can serve as critical entry points for not only students, but also for their families. Civic learning should be understood as a lifelong process that begins in the classroom but continues well beyond it.

One promising strategy is to use K–12 classrooms as platforms for community-wide civic engagement. When students study topics such as U.S. government, citizens’ rights and responsibilities, and the structure of democratic institutions, parents and caregivers can be invited to engage alongside them. Through shared assignments, take-home materials, or school-hosted events, families can deepen their understanding of foundational civic concepts such as the separation of powers and the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. This multigenerational approach can reinforce civic knowledge at home while building stronger connections between schools and communities. To the extent that improvements in attitudes associated with jury service may have been related to interactions with people in the system, such as judges, educational programs might also consider including exposure to those personnel as part of their programming.

Outside the school system, private industry also plays an important role in strengthening civic education for adults. Employers can offer workplace civics modules on topics such as government structure, individual rights, the duties of citizenship, and the function of public institutions. These offerings can help normalize civic dialogue in settings where adults spend much of their time — particularly as membership in traditional venues for civic engagement, such as unions, neighborhood associations, and fraternal organizations, has declined. In doing so, employers can contribute to a more informed, civically engaged workforce.

Although U.S. military personnel take oaths of service and receive training in military law and conduct, formal civic instruction is not typically included in basic training. Yet there is growing recognition that civic knowledge is essential not only for effective military service but also for engaged citizenship. One example is the American Bar Association’s “Strengthening Democracy” video series, developed with support from the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics at APPC. This initiative aims to improve service members’ understanding of democratic institutions, legal frameworks, and civic responsibilities. Similar programs could be adapted for use in other public institutions or through community-based partnerships, advancing both professional development and civic understanding.

Another example can be found in the courts themselves. The Breyer Community Learning Center in Boston, the Justice and Democracy Center of Minnesota, and the Judicial Learning Center in St. Louis are just three of a growing number of civics learning centers spearheaded by the federal courts. At these centers, children and adults alike can learn about the role courts play in U.S. life through educational materials on the Constitution, landmark cases, and careers in the justice system. In Hawai’i, the PACE (Commission to Promote and Advance Civic Education) Commission partners with the courts to run the Kauai Law & Justice Academy — a three-day intensive program that culminates in a mock trial before sitting state judges. And in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, judges hosted more than 300 high school students in 2025 for a Summer Justice Institute, where participants heard from federal judges, law enforcement officials, attorneys, and law professors. These are but a small sample of the efforts being undertaken by our courts. Together, these efforts create opportunities to expose not only students but also their families to the vital role courts play in U.S. society.

Ultimately, expanding civic education will require the coordinated efforts of a wide range of institutions, including the courts, nonprofit organizations, workplaces, and advocacy groups. Through initiatives like Civics@Work, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce provides employers with toolkits and training to integrate civic learning into the workplace, focusing on rights, democratic processes, media literacy, and cross-community collaboration. The Bolch Judicial Institute’s Civics Break program provides ready-made presentations about courts and the rule of law designed for lawyers, judges, and others to share in community group or workplace settings. These scalable, nonpartisan modules offer a low-cost, high-impact way to promote civic knowledge. By delivering content tailored to varying levels of civic awareness and engagement, such efforts can help broaden the reach of civic education. Whatever the route, the ultimate goal should be to raise baseline civic literacy and empower all individuals to participate meaningfully in democratic life. In a time of polarization and misinformation, this is not merely an educational priority — it is a democratic necessity.

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About the Authors

SHAWN PATTERSON JR. is a research analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania.

ABIGAIL (ABBY) MURRAY is a third-year Duke Law student and student editor for Judicature. A graduate of Davidson College with a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics, she will serve as a judicial law clerk after graduation.

MATTHEW LEVENDUSKY is the Stephen and Mary Baran Chair in the Institutions of Democracy (IOD) at the APPC, director of the APPC’s IOD division, and a professor of political science and communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

R. LANCE HOLBERT is director of the APPC’s Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics and a research professor in the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania and the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the APPC.

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1. The Federalist No. 78 (Alexander Hamilton).
2. David F. Levi et al., Losing Faith: Why Public Trust in the Judiciary Matters, 106 Judicature 71, 72 (2022).
3. Annenberg Public Policy Center, Americans’ Knowledge of Civics Increases, Annenberg Survey Finds, Annenberg Pub. Pol’y Ctr. (Sep. 11, 2025) [hereinafter Knowledge of Civics], https://duke.is/Annenberg-2025-survey-civics-knowledge.
4. Id.
5. See Matthew Levendusky et al., Has the Supreme Court Become Just Another Political Branch? Public Perceptions of Court Approval and Legitimacy in a Post-Dobbs World, 10 Sci. Advances 1,1 (2024) (“The year 2022 saw the lowest levels [of approval] ever recorded by Gallup in the 50-year history of this question.”).
6. See Knowledge of Civics, supra note 3 (citing Annenberg Public Policy Center, Most Americans Trust the Supreme Court, But Think It Is ‘Too Mixed Up in Politics.’ Annenberg Pub. Pol’y Ctr. (Oct. 16, 2019), https://duke.is/Annenberg-court-mixed-up-in-politics).
7. Id.
8. See id. (citing previously unreported data from May 2024).
9. Id.
10. See id. (summarizing Americans’ survey responses since 2005 regarding how much they trust the Supreme Court to operate in the best interests of the American people and people like themselves).
11. See id. (referencing survey responses from 2025 and 2005).
12. Annenberg Public Policy Center, Most Americans Support Checks on Presidential Power, Annenberg Pub. Pol’y Ctr. (Apr. 22, 2025) [hereinafter Checks on Presidential Power], https://duke.is/Annenberg-checks-on-presidential-power.
13. Id.
14. See id. (explaining results from a 2006 survey regarding justices’ ethical practices).
15. See, e.g., Shawn Patterson et al., The Withering of Public Confidence in the Courts, 108 Judicature 23, 25 (2024) (“Generally, the public has held the judicial branch as a whole in higher esteem than the Supreme Court.”).
16. See Shawn Patterson et al., To Know the Courts Is to Love Them, Open Sci. Framework (Jan. 6, 2026) [hereinafter Data Repository], https://duke.is/Patterson-data-repository (showing original data gathered for this article) (on file with author), https://osf.io/k2ebu/overview.
17. See Figure 2 (indicating the percentage of people who expressed “a great deal,” “a lot,” and “a moderate amount” of trust in the U.S. Supreme Court); id.
18. See Knowledge of Civics, supra note 3 (“There is a remarkable, nearly 60-point gap between the two major parties on trust in the Supreme Court — 75% of Republicans have at least a moderate amount of trust, but only 18% of Democrats and 38% of independents do.”); Data Repository, supra note 16 (showing original data gathered for this article). Note that those respondents described in the Knowledge of Civics article, see supra note 3, who identified as Independents who lean Republican or Democrat are not included in either party for purposes of over-time comparisons.
19. Patterson et al., supra note 15, at 24; Levendusky et al., supra note 5, at 9 (“Those who are the most knowledgeable about the Court see it as the most legitimate . . . .”); James L. Gibson et al., On the Legitimacy of National High Courts, 92 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 343, 344 (1998).
20. Liana Pennington & Matthew J. Dolliver, Understanding the Effects of Jury Service on Jurors’ Trust in Courts, 56 Law & Soc’y Rev. 580, 580–600 (2022).
21. John Gastil et al., The Jury and Democracy: How jury deliberation promotes civic engagement and political participation 48 (2010).
22. Id. at 10.
23. [your state] is replaced with the survey respondent’s home state.
24. James L. Gibson, The Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court in a Polarized Polity, 4 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 507, 510 (2007); see id. at 532–33 (concluding that recent findings reinforce rather than challenge prior research that determined the majority of Americans trust the U.S. Supreme Court and accept its legitimacy regardless of respondents’ political ideology).
25. See generally Checks on Presidential Power, supra note 12 (explaining the positive effects of jury service on trust in the “institution of the courts”).
26. See generally Patterson et al., supra note 15 (discussing the relationship between civic knowledge and public trust in the judiciary).
27. See Data Repository, supra note 16 (showing original data gathered for this article).
28. Emanuella Evans, Jury Trials Are Disappearing. Here’s Why., Injustice Watch (Feb. 17, 2021), https://duke.is/disappearing-jury-trials-study.
29. The Civil Justice Research Initiative, The Civil Jury: Reviving an American Institution 10 (2021), https://duke.is/civil-jury-revive.
30. See Admin. Office of the U.S. Courts, Caseload Statistics Data Tables C-4 & D-4 (summarizing civil cases terminated in U.S. district courts and “criminal defendants disposed of” in U.S. district courts, respectively, https://duke.is/uscourt-tables).
31. The Civil Justice Research Initiative, supra note 29, at 4.
32. David Joseph Scriven-Young, ADR and the Increasing Popularity of Collaborative Law, ABA: Litigation Radio (Feb. 7, 2023), https://duke.is/ADR-Collaborative-Law-Popularity.
33. Evans, supra note 28.
34. See id. (“Between 1962 and 2013, . . . use of jury trials in federal criminal cases declined from 8.2% to 3.6% . . . .”).
35. Lucian E. Dervan, Fourteen Principles and a Path Forward for Plea Bargaining Reform, ABA: Criminal Justice Magazine (Jan. 22, 2024), https://duke.is/fourteen-principles-plea-bargaining.
36. Paula Hannaford-Agor et al., Preserving the Future of Juries & Jury Trials, Nat’l Ctr. for State Cts. 6 (2024), https://duke.is/preserving-future-of-juries.
37. Id.
38. John Gramlich, Jury Duty Is Rare, but Most Americans See it as Part of Good Citizenship, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Aug. 24, 2017), https://duke.is/jury-duty-good-citizenship.
39. Id.
40. Paula Hannaford-Agor & Morgan Moffett, 2023 State-of-the-States Survey of Jury Improvement Efforts, Nat’l Ctr. for State Cts. (2024), https://duke.is/2023-state-of-states.
41. Id.
42. See Kathleen Hall Jamieson & Michael Hennessy, Public Understanding of and Support for the Courts: Survey Results, 95 Geo. L.J. 899 (2006); Kathleen Hall Jamieson & Bruce W. Hardy, Will Ignorance & Partisan Election of Judges Undermine Public Trust in the Judiciary?, 137 Daedalus 11 (2008); Gregory A. Caldeira & Kevin T. McGuire, What Americans Know About the Courts and Why it Matters, in Institutions of American Democracy: The Judicial Branch 262 (Kermit L. Hall & Kevin T. McGuire eds., 2005); James L. Gibson & Gregory A. Caldeira, Knowing the Supreme Court? A Reconsideration of Public Ignorance of the High Court, 71 J. Pol. 429 (2009).