Can We All Get Along

The Academy Award nominated film 12 Angry Men is a dramatic portrayal of a jury trying to reach a unanimous verdict in a criminal trial.  It begins with eleven jurors voting "guilty" and one "holdout" juror.  During the deliberation process, the eleven jurors voting "guilty" are persuaded to change to "not guilty."  The storyline is good drama, but fiction.  During my 21 years as a trial court judge, I never had the experience of one juror persuading the others to change their opinions.  The fact, not the fiction, is that it is common in the American legal system for one juror to doggedly refuse to join with his or her fellow jurors to deliver a unanimous verdict and the trial ends where it began, without a verdict.  If a jury fails to reach a unanimous verdict, the judge must declare a mistrial and the case will start all over again with a new jury.  Frequently, when the case is presented to a subsequent jury, the jurors quickly come to a unanimous verdict.  Jurors who participate in a "hung jury" resulting from a "holdout" juror, are frustrated by the legal process.  They have given their time (perhaps reluctantly) to participate in a public service and feel that the public is not being well served by a judicial system that allows a single juror to control the outcome. Surprisingly, the judicial process in some states allows a verdict by a non-unanimous jury, and the United States Supreme Court has approved such convictions despite the lack of jury unanimity.  For a comprehensive examination of the legal and practical aspects of unanimous v. non-unanimous verdicts, read the well researched and concise law review article at the link below, written by Michael Glasser.    John Greanias, Copyright 2013.

http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/frames/243/glasfram.html