Bench trial

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Bench trial" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A bench trial is a trial by judge, as opposed to a jury.^[1] The term applies most appropriately to any administrative hearing in relation to a summary offense to distinguish the type of trial. Many legal systems (Roman, Islamic) use bench trials for most or all cases or for certain types of cases.

As a jury renders a verdict, in a bench trial, a judge does the same by making a finding.^[2]