That is correct. America's judicial system, during trial, works with something called "Jury". This is a group of people that are selected, as you mentioned, randomly, that are gonna be the ones assigned to a case and after the trial is over, they are going to have to reach to a verdict, sometimes unanimously. This means, they are the ones deciding wether or not a defendant is guilty.
The citizens are chosen from a list that includes many different sources, for example, voter registrations or drivers' license registrations.
There are three types of juries in America: criminal grand juries, petit juries, and civil juries.
The way the members of the jury are chosen is the following:
- First they will be contacted by the court, which is going to communicate to them that they have a jury duty.
- Once they report to the courthouse, they are assigned a case, and the lawyers from both parties will question every person called for duty to reveal any prejudices. If prejudices are found, those people are dismissed and new ones are chosen.
- Then, when all the jurors all selected, the trial starts. The amount of people in the jury depends on the law covering the case, but there are usually around 12 members in a jury.
- Once the trial is finished, the verdict is revealed.
The jurors get paid a small amount of money for their participation
