Unanimous Jury Research Articles

Majority jury verdicts in England and Wales: a vestige of white supremacy?

In England and Wales, the requirement for a unanimous jury verdict in criminal cases was abolished in 1967, marking a significant departure from a centuries-old legal tradition. Majority verdicts are now common practice, yet no research to date explores the origins of this sudden change to the jury system. In contrast, recent research in the US uncovered a connection between the conception of majority verdicts in Louisiana and Jim Crow era law-making, finding that majority verdicts were strategically introduced to suppress the black juror vote and facilitate quicker convictions to fuel free prison labour. The US Supreme Court later outlawed majority verdicts in a case known as Ramos v. Louisiana, amid recognition of their racist origins . Adopting the critical epistemological position guiding the US research, we consider how race and class underpinned the decision to introduce majority verdicts in England and Wales. Drawing on Home Office files and other archival materials, we find that an increase in eligible jurors from different racial and class backgrounds led to a perceived decline in the ‘calibre’ of jurors – reflective of wider public anxieties about Commonwealth immigration, Black Power and white disenfranchisement. We conclude that a desire to dilute the influence of ‘coloured’ migrants on juries contributed to the introduction of majority verdicts in England and Wales.

The Case against Unanimous Jury Requirements*

Journal of Political PhilosophyVolume 31, Issue 1 p. 24-41 Original Article The Case against Unanimous Jury Requirements* Vishnu Sridharan, Corresponding Author Vishnu Sridharan [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0002-8857-2630 Law and Philosophy, University of California, Los AngelesSearch for more papers by this author Vishnu Sridharan, Corresponding Author Vishnu Sridharan [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0002-8857-2630 Law and Philosophy, University of California, Los AngelesSearch for more papers by this author First published: 10 October 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12284 Copyright notice: © 2022 The Author. Journal compilation © 2022 Wiley Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. *I wish to thank Greg Keating, Jake Nebel, Jon Quong, Mark Schroeder, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier drafts. My deepest gratitude goes to John Hawthorne for his boundless patience, unwavering support, and probing insight on this project. Research for this article was made possible by a Manning Foundation Fellowship from the University of Southern California. Among other things, the criminal justice system allows for retrials, which would result in an additional layer of complication to any analysis. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume31, Issue1March 2023Pages 24-41 RelatedInformation

Review of the Originalism’s Interpretation of the Amendment VI of the U.S. Constitution Focusing on the Discussion on Whether the Constitution Approves Non-Unanimous Verdict System in Criminal Jury Trial

미국에서 형사배심제의 헌법적 근거는 미연방헌법 수정(증보)조항 제6조(Amendment VI, 이하 수정 6조)에 마련되어 있는데 그에 따르면 공정한 배심의 재판을 받을 권리가 보장된다. 배심재판의 공정성을 충족하는 요건들이 헌법에 명시되어 있지 않아 이에 대한 논의가 계속되어 왔는데, 흔히 유죄평결에서의 만장일치제 운영이 핵심적 요건 중 하나로 제시되어 왔다. 관련하여 2020년 연방대법원은 Ramos v. Louisiana 판결을 내리며 수정 6조의 해석상 형사배심의 유죄평결에서는 배심원의 만장일치가 필요하고 이는 연방과 모든 주의 형사배심 운영에 동일하게 적용된다고 판시하였다. 대법관 임명 이전부터 스스로를 원의주의자라고 지칭한 닐 고서치 대법관은 Ramos 판결에서 다수의견을 집필하며, 형사배심 유죄평결의 만장일치제가 수정 6조의 채택 당시 법문의 본래적 의미에 해당되고 역사적 상황에 대한 자료를 통해 이것이 확인된다고 논증하였다. 그는 형사배심 유죄평결의 만장일치제가 영국법과 코몬로의 전통이었으며 이러한 제도는 북아메리카에 마련된 신생 식민지들에서도 그대로 적용되는 등 수정 6조 채택 무렵 만장일치제는 배심제 운영의 필수요건으로 승인되었다고 강조하였다. 그리고 제헌 이후에도 일관되게 주요 법률가들은 형사배심의 유죄평결에서 만장일치제를 당연한 것으로 받아들였다고 주장하였다. 이처럼 역사적 자료를 통하여 헌법 문언의 본래적 의미를 확인하는 해석 방식을 흔히 원의주의라 칭한다. 원의주의는 사법부의 재량 일탈을 통제하기 위해 헌법제정자의 의도에 충실한 해석을 강조하며 출현하였다. 이후 헌법제정자들의 의도가 아닌 헌법 문언의 본래적 의미를 파악하는 것이 헌법해석의 핵심작업이 되어야 한다는 신(新) 원의주의가 출현하며 고서치 대법관 등 현재 연방대법관들에게까지 영향을 미치고 있다. 신 원의주의는 고정(화) 명제, 공적 의미 명제, 문언의 강제력 명제, 해석-구성 구별 명제 등으로 그 특징을 정리할 수 있는데, 결국 역사적 자료들에 대한 탐색을 통해 법문을 중심으로 그의 본래적 공적 의미를 발견하려 한다. 이러한 신 원의주의에 대해서는 해석자가 현재 시점의 배경과 지식으로부터 절연되어 헌법 문언의 본래적 의미를 온전히 찾아낼 수 있는지 그리고 헌법제정자들이 전혀 예측하지 못한 미래의 상황에 문언의 본래적 의미를 그대로 적용하는 것이 적절한지 비판이 제기되어 오고 있다. 이러한 비판은 Ramos 판결에서 고서치 대법관의 원의주의 헌법해석에도 유효한데, 무엇보다 이 글에서는 다양한 역사적 자료들을 통하여 만장일치식 배심평결제가 제헌 당시 보편적으로 승인되지 않았고 그 후 일관되게 지지되지도 않았음을 확인하였다. 그에 따라 Ramos 판결의 결론의 타당성과는 별개로, 고서치 대법관이 수정 6조의 본래적 의미를 확인하는 논증 방식, 즉 원의주의 헌법해석에 한계가 있음을 확인할 수 있었다.In the United States, the constitutional basis for the criminal jury system is in the Amendment VI of the Constitution in which the right to trial by an impartial jury is guaranteed. Although the requirements for satisfying the impartiality of jury trial are not specified in the Constitution, the operation of the unanimous verdict system in jury trail has often been suggested as one of the key requirements. In Ramos v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court ruled that according to the interpretation of Amendment VI, the criminal conviction requires unanimous consent of jurors, which applies equally to criminal jury trial in the federal and all states. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who referred to himself as an Originalist before the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice, wrote the Majority Opinion in the Ramos case and argued that the unanimous system of criminal jury conviction was included in the original public meaning of the Article VI at the time of its ratification. He stressed that the unanimous system of criminal jury conviction was a tradition of British common law, and that system was approved as a prerequisite for the operation of the jury system by the time the Article VI was adopted, as it was applied to new colonies in North America. And even after the ratification, prominent lawyers consistently argued that the unanimous system was taken for granted in the conviction of criminal jury. As such, the interpretation method of confirming the original meaning of the constitutional text through historical documents is often referred to as originalism. Originalism emerged by emphasizing a faithful interpretation of the intention of the constitutional founder to control the discretion of judges. After that time, New Originalism has emerged that grasping the original meaning of the constitutional text, not the intention of the constitutional founders, has become a key task in constitutional interpretation, affecting current Supreme Court Justices such as Justice Gorsuch. New Originalism might be explained by fixation thesis, public meaning thesis, textual constraint thesis and interpretation-construction distinction thesis, and eventually attempts to discover its original public meaning through exploration of historical facts regarding the legal text. However, criticism has been raised over whether it is possible to fully find the original meaning of the constitutional text, insulated from the background and knowledge at the present time, and to apply the original meaning of the text to current situations that the constitutional founders have never predicted. This criticism is also applicable to the constitutional interpretation by Justice Gorsuch in the Ramos case, and above all, through various historical records, it can be confirmed that the unanimous jury trial was not universally approved at the time of constitutional ratification and was not consistently supported. Accordingly, it is verified that Justice Gorsuch failed to confirm the original meaning of Article VI and that there is a limitation to the constitutional interpretation through Originalism.

A theory of unanimous jury voting with an ambiguous likelihood

A theory of unanimous jury voting with an ambiguous likelihood

Form Follows People? – Copenhagen’s Ny Nørreport as a Post-Participatory Project

Following the dictum: “Form Follows People” two Danish offices used patterns generated from pedestrian movement to create the infrastructural layout when redesigning Copenhagen’s Nørreport train station. A choice that was praised by a unanimous jury and municipal client who were eager to present the winning proposal as being shaped by “the people.” However other readings are possible, the design can also be seen as a striking architectural gesture where the public is both framed as a vital prerequisite yet at the same time as the unaware producers of space. In order to understand this reasoning, this essay looks at the “human oriented approach” the offices adopted for the Nørreport project. This entails discussing the project as somewhat participatory and tracing its references back to the research on pedestrian movement done by Danish architect and urbanist Jan Gehl in the 1960s. An approach that now 50 years later can be seen coinciding with a shift in city planning where municipalities and planning offices readily embrace designing for more loosely defined subjects such as pedestrians or simply “people.” As the argument for the design only formally maintains the social agenda of participation, this essay asks whether the project could instead be read in terms of system design and its participatory practice understood in a cybernetic sense as feedback and input, and as such, if the project ultimately could be perceived as a “post-participatory” project.

More than Just a Factfinder: The Right to Unanimous Jury Sentencing in Capital Cases

For some defendants, sentencing may be even more harrowing than a determination of guilt or innocence. Those facing capital punishment have the most to lose at the sentencing phase. The Supreme Court is not ignorant to this reality, finding in Ring v. Arizona that “the Sixth Amendment would be senselessly diminished” if it had no application to death penalty proceedings. Yet under its permissive jurisprudence, the Court has suggested that the Sixth Amendment is satisfied in the death penalty context even if its protections vanish postconviction. This Note argues instead that the Sixth Amendment—specifically the jury right—should protect defendants more during the capital sentencing phase, not less. Ultimately, it contends that defendants have a constitutional right to jury sentencing by a unanimous verdict before facing the death penalty.

Eleven angry men

AbstractWhile many of us would not want to abandon the requirement that a defendant can only be found guilty of a serious criminal offence by a unanimous jury, we should not expect epistemology to give us the resources we need for justifying this requirement. The doubts that might prevent jurors from reaching unanimity do not show that, say, the BARD standard has not been met. Even if it were true, as some have suggested, that rationality requires that a jury composed of epistemic peers should coalesce around one view about the defendant's guilt, the failure to reach unanimity might be a good reason to worry about the epistemic failings of some small number of jurors but no reason to worry that we've failed to protect the defendant from an unjustified imposition of, say, the risk against wrongful conviction. The arguments for the unanimity requirement will need to come from outside of epistemology.

Examining the effect of case and trial factors on defense attorneys’ plea decision-making

ABSTRACT Defense attorneys are attuned to the defendant’s likelihood of conviction at trial, based on the strength of the evidence, in forming their plea decisions. A higher threshold for conviction (i.e. unanimous jury verdict rule versus majority rule), could affect defense attorneys’ willingness to take cases to trial. In this study, we examined defense attorney decision-making by presenting defense attorneys with a hypothetical case summary in which the jury verdict rule was unanimous versus majority rule (experiment one, N = 82), and the strength of the evidence was weak versus strong (experiment two, N = 81). In experiment one, there was no direct or indirect effect of jury verdict rule on plea decision-making. Rather, defense attorney estimates of the defendant’s likelihood of conviction predicted plea decisions; defense attorneys who perceived a higher likelihood of conviction were more likely to recommend plea bargaining than those who perceived a lower likelihood of conviction. In experiment two, strength of evidence influenced a number of defense attorney decisions. Defense attorneys in strong evidence conditions were more likely to recommend plea bargaining, rated the defendant’s likelihood of conviction higher, and their probability of winning at trial lower than those in weak evidence conditions.

The Decline of the Judicial Override

Since 1972, the Supreme Court has experimented with regulation of the death penalty, seeking the illusive goals of consistency, reliability, and fairness. In this century, the court held that the Sixth Amendment prohibited judges from making findings necessary to impose a death sentence. Separately, the court held that the Eighth Amendment safeguarded evolving standards of decency as measured by national consensus. In this article, we discuss the role of judges in death determinations, identifying jurisdictions that initially (post 1972) allowed judge sentencing and naming the individuals who today remain under judge-imposed death sentences. The decisions guaranteeing a jury determination have so far been applied only to cases that have not undergone initial review in state courts. Key questions remain unresolved, including whether the evolving standards of decency permit the execution of more than 100 individuals who were condemned to death by judges without a jury's death verdict before implementation of the rules that now require unanimous jury votes.

The Supreme Court against the criminal jury: social science and the palladium of liberty

Chapter 1: The Emergence of the Criminal Jury as a Contemporary Political Problem Chapter 2: Six v. Twelve: The Court's Use of History Chapter 3: No Discernible Difference: On the Court's Use of Social Science Chapter 4: Auxiliary Precautions: Unanimous Jury Verdicts v. Majority Jury Verdicts Chapter 5: Majority Verdict and Jury Nullification

When Should Political Scientists Use the Self-Confirming Equilibrium Concept? Benefits, Costs, and an Application to Jury Theorems

Many claims about political behavior are based on implicit assumptions about how people think. One such assumption, that political actors use identical conjectures when assessing others' strategies, is nested within applications of widely used game-theoretic equilibrium concepts. When empirical findings call this assumption into question, the self-confirming equilibrium (SCE) concept provides an alternate criterion for theoretical claims. We examine applications of SCE to political science. Our main example focuses on the claim of Feddersen and Pesendorfer that unanimity rule can lead juries to convict innocent defendants (1998. Convicting the innocent: The inferiority of unanimous jury verdicts under strategic voting.American Political Science Review92:23–35). We show that the claim depends on the assumption that jurors have identical beliefs about one another's types and identical conjectures about one another's strategies. When jurors' beliefs and conjectures vary in ways documented by empirical jury research, fewer false convictions can occur in equilibrium. The SCE concept can confer inferential advantages when actors have different beliefs and conjectures about one another.

Tobacco litigation: medical monitoring of healthy smokers.

In West Virginia, healthy smokers can now sue tobacco companies to require them to fund medical monitoring for health risks associated with smoking. InBlankenship, formally known asIn re Tobacco Litigation (Medical Monitoring Case), the Circuit Court for Ohio County permitted a jury to decide the medical monitoring claim, despite the clam’s novelty and controversy. The unanimous jury refused to enforce the plaintiffs’ demands, and the court denied a motion for retrial. This trial was the second attempt of the class action lawsuit; the court had previously declared a mistrial when an attorney used the word “addiction” in front of the jury.The court certified a class of residents of the state of West Virginia with more than a five “pack-year history” (at least one pack per day for five years) of smoking the defendant tobacco companies’ cigarettes, who did not have any of a list of named smoking-related illnesses, including various cancers and coronary heart disease, and who did not receive health care paid for – or reimbursed by – the state of West Virginia.

In Defense of Unanimous Jury Verdicts: Mistrials, Communication, and Strategic Voting

The requirement of unanimous jury verdicts in criminal trials is widely believed to reduce the likelihood of convicting the innocent. This belief depends largely upon the assumption that jurors will vote nonstrategically based on their impression of the trial evidence. Recent literature, however, has questioned this assumption, and Feddersen and Pesendorfer propose a model in which it is never a Nash equilibrium for jurors to vote nonstrategically under unanimity rule, and equilibrium behavior produces higher probabilities of both convicting the innocent and acquitting the guilty under unanimity rule than under numerous alternatives. I extend this work by incorporating two additional features of actual jury procedure: the possibility of mistrial and communication among jurors. Under each circumstance, I demonstrate that nonstrategic voting is a Nash equilibrium under fairly general conditions and that unanimity performs better than any alternative rule in minimizing probability of trial error and maximizing expected utility.

Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting

It is often suggested that requiring juries to reach a unanimous verdict reduces the probability of convicting an innocent defendant while increasing the probability of acquitting a guilty defendant. We construct a model that demonstrates how strategic voting by jurors undermines this basic intuition. We show that the unanimity rule may lead to a high probability of both kinds of error and that the probability of convicting an innocent defendant may actually increase with the size of the jury. Finally, we demonstrate that a wide variety of voting rules, including simple majority rule, lead to much lower probabilities of both kinds of error.

Gateway to Empire: An Interpretation of Eero Saarinen's 1948 Design for the St. Louis Arch

In 1948, a unanimous jury awarded the $40,000 first prize in the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Competition to a design team headed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. Competitors had been charged with memorializing Thomas Jefferson, his Louisiana Purchase, and the expansion of the American nation by creating a national park and monument on the West bank of the Mississippi River at St. Louis.

The basis of citizens' perceptions of the criminal jury: Procedural fairness, accuracy, and efficiency.

Two studies examined citizens' perceptions of the criminal jury and their evaluations of 6- or 12-person juries operating under unanimous or majority decision rules. Study 1 was a telephone survey of 130 adult citizens in which respondents evaluated alternative jury structures in the abstract. In Study 2, students were asked to evaluate jury structures for a hypothetical trial in which they were either the defendant or the victim in a crime with a mild or serious outcome. In both studies, jury size and decision rule were related to ratings of procedural cost, and the severity of the crime moderated procedural evaluations. In Study 1, juries were preferred to judges and the 12-person unanimous jury was preferred over other jury structures when the crime involved was serious. In Study 2, there were no direct effects due to variations in jury structure, but subjects appeared to trade off procedural cost and thoroughness of deliberation as a function of the seriousness of the crime. Procedural fairness emerged as the strongest independent predictor of desirability for jury procedures, and fairness was related to representativeness and accuracy. The role manipulation did not influence subjects' responses. In both studies, respondents were very supportive of the jury as an institution, despite a perception that erroneous jury verdicts do occur.

Less than Unanimous Jury Verdicts in Criminal Trials

Less than Unanimous Jury Verdicts in Criminal Trials

Criminal Procedure: Waiver of Unanimous Jury Verdict in Federal Courts

Criminal Procedure: Waiver of Unanimous Jury Verdict in Federal Courts

Jury Trial. Defendant in a Federal Criminal Prosecution Cannot Waive His Constitutional Right to a Unanimous Jury Verdict

Jury Trial. Defendant in a Federal Criminal Prosecution Cannot Waive His Constitutional Right to a Unanimous Jury Verdict