Majority Verdicts

Majority Verdicts
Author: New South Wales. Law Reform Commission
Publisher:
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2005
Genre: Criminal procedure
ISBN: 9780734726193

It is generally considered that the requirement of unanimity results in more hung juries than does the alternative system of requiring only a majority of jurors to agree on a verdict. What constitutes a majority differs between jurisdictions that have embraced the concept, and may also depend on the type of offence being tried. This Report examines arguments for and against preserving the unanimity rule.

The Supreme Court against the Criminal Jury

The Supreme Court against the Criminal Jury
Author: John A. Murley
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2014-06-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0739136232

The Supreme Court against the Criminal Jury: Social Science and the Palladium of Liberty is an analysis of the United States Supreme Court decisions in what has come to be called the “jury-size” and “jury-decision rule” cases. In Williams v. Florida (1970) and Ballew v. Georgia (1978), a majority of the Supreme Court looked to history, empirical studies, and functional analysis to support its claim that there was “no discernible difference” between the verdicts of juries of six and juries of twelve. In the process the Court also decided that the number twelve was an historical accident and that the twelve-member jury was not an essential ingredient of trial by jury. Two years later, the Court, following essentially the same line of reasoning used in Williams, decided in the companion cases Apodaca v. Oregon (1972) and Johnson v. Louisiana (1972) that defendants were as well served with juries that reached verdicts by a majority vote of 11-1,10-2 and 9-3 as they were with unanimous jury verdicts. In these cases the Supreme Court rejected the centuries old common law view that the unanimous jury verdict was an essential element of trial by jury. With these four decisions, the criminal jury as it had been known for more than six hundred years under the common law and the Constitution was in principle abandoned. We critique these decisions from the perspective of unreliable jury studies and the impact of these decision on jury nullification.

Impeachment

Impeachment
Author: Raoul Berger
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 416
Release: 1974
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780674444782

The little understood yet great power of impeachment lodged in the Congress is dissected in this text through history by Raoul Berger, a leading scholar on the subject. He sheds new light on whether impeachment is limited to indictable crimes, on whether there is jurisdiction to impeach for misconduct outside office, and on whether impeachment must precede indictment. Berger also finds firm footing in contesting the views of one-time Judge Robert Bork and President Nixon's lawyer, James St Clair.

The Missing American Jury

The Missing American Jury
Author: Suja A. Thomas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2016-06-16
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1107055652

This book explores why juries have declined in power and how the federal government and the states have taken the jury's authority.