The National Trial Lawyers
  • Home
    • Meet Our Team
    • Contact Us
    • Mission & Goals
    • FAQ
  • Webinars
  • News
  • Membership Directory
    • Top 100 Map – Civil Plaintiff
    • Top 100 Map – Criminal Defense
    • Top 40 Under 40 Map – Civil Plaintiff
    • Top 40 Under 40 Map – Criminal Defense
  • Top 100
    • Civil Plaintiff Officers / Executive Committee
    • Criminal Defense Officers / Executive Committee
    • Benefits
    • About
    • Top 100 President’s Message
    • Diplomat
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Top 100 Badge
    • Media
  • Top 40
    • Civil Plaintiff Officers / Executive Committee
    • Criminal Defense Officers / Executive Committee
    • Top 40 Under 40 Trial Academy Bootcamp
    • Benefits
    • About
    • Top 40 President’s Message
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Top 40 Badge
    • Media
  • Specialty Assoc
    • About
    • Shop
    • Officers
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Media
  • Nominate
    • Top 100
    • Top 40
    • Specialty Association
    • Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame
    • Trial Lawyer of the Year
    • Trial Team of the Year
    • America’s Most Influential Trial Lawyer
    • America’s Most Influential Law Firm
    • Lifetime Achievement Award
  • Shop
  • Magazine
    • A-List
  • Education and Networking Agenda
    • Trial Lawyers Summit
      • Summit Sponsors
    • Top 40 Under 40 Trial Academy Boot Camp
    • Mass Torts Made Perfect
    • The Lanier Master Class 5.0 Trial Academy 2021
    • Webinars
  • Hall of Fame
    • Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame

What’s the Best Jury Size?

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Andrew Findley

Slate; April 25, 2013

Several years ago, a man from Oregon named Alonso Alvino Herrera borrowed a friend’s car and never returned it. He was arrested and charged with unauthorized use of a vehicle and possession of stolen property. In 2008, a jury acquitted him of the second charge but convicted him of the first charge … by a 10-to-2 vote.

Does something strike you as odd about this story? Isn’t a verdict in a criminal trial supposed to be unanimous? The answer is yes in 48 states and yes if the case is tried in a federal court. But two states, Oregon and Louisiana, allow convictions by a nonunanimous vote. Oregon allows a 10-to-2 vote in noncapital cases; Louisiana’s threshold for conviction is 9 to 3. Arguably, Herrera had to go to jail for the crime of living in Oregon.

The Supreme Court has allowed this conflict between federal and state law (as well as between state law and conventional wisdom) to persist for more than 40 years, during which time it has come up with a mishmash of seemingly arbitrary rules about what constitutes a legal trial. A jury of six, the Supreme Court has decided, is constitutional (Williams v. Florida, 1970). A jury of five, however, is not constitutional (Ballew v. Georgia, 1978). In a jury of six, conviction must be unanimous (Burch v. Louisiana, 1979). But in a jury of 12, conviction does not have to be unanimous (Johnson v. Louisiana and Apodaca v. Oregon, 1972).

The Supreme Court’s rationale has been as confusing as its decisions. “The line between five- and six-member juries is difficult to justify, but a line has to be drawn somewhere,” wrote Justice Lewis Powell in Ballew v. Georgia. Justice Harry Blackmun, in the majority opinion for that case, cited several studies by social scientists on the error rate of juries of different sizes and wrote in a footnote: “We have considered [these studies] carefully because they provide the only basis, besides judicial hunch, for a decision about whether smaller and smaller juries will be able to fulfill the purpose and functions of the Sixth Amendment.” Powell, though agreeing with the decision, chastised Blackmun’s justification: “I have reservations as to the wisdom—as well as the necessity—of Mr. Justice Blackmun’s heavy reliance on numerology derived from statistical studies.”

To read the complete article, please click here: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/04/the_mathematics_of_juries_the_jury_size_and_voting_margins_necessary_for.html

Posted in Blog, Newsletter

Comments are closed.

Recent Posts

Pharmaceutical Giant Johnson & Johnson is Preparing $3.9B for Talc Settlements

Pharmaceutical Giant Johnson & Johnson is Preparing $3.9B for Talc Settlements

February 26th, 2021

Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has set aside $3.9 billion for talc-related litigation, according to a regulatory [Read More...]
Alaska Airlines Will Pay $3.19M Following the Death of a Passenger

Alaska Airlines Will Pay $3.19M Following the Death of a Passenger

February 24th, 2021

Seattle-based Alaska Airlines has been ordered to pay more than $3 million to the family of a passenger of reduced mobility w[Read More...]
No thumbnail available

Keith Givens on the Trial Lawyers Summit and Lanier Trial Academy

February 23rd, 2021

https://vimeo.com/515910581 Michelle Swanner, Executive Director of The National Trial Lawyers, interviews Keith Givens[Read More...]
A $220M Settlement Reached in National Milk Producers' Herd Retirement Program

A $220M Settlement Reached in National Milk Producers' Herd Retirement Program

February 22nd, 2021

ST. LOUIS, Feb. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A $220 million settlement has been reached in a class-action law[Read More...]
Mountaire Farms Proposes a $65M Settlement for Contaminating the Millsboro-Area Groundwater and Air

Mountaire Farms Proposes a $65M Settlement for Contaminating the Millsboro-Area Groundwater and Air

February 19th, 2021

It’s a lawsuit that’s been years in the making, but the class-action suit against Mountaire Farms may be approach[Read More...]

Contact Us | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Attorney information and content provided on this website is provided for the benefit of members of The National Trial Lawyers and as a public service by Legal Associations Management, Inc. The website and all data are the property of Legal Associations Management, Inc. Data, including without limitation attorney information and content, on the site may not be mined, sold, or used commercially for any purpose without the explicit written consent of Legal Associations Management, Inc. This site may not be accessed by any automated program for extracting data for any use. By accessing and using the site you agree that you will not develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots, or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plug-ins and add-ons, or any other technology) to scrape data or otherwise copy profiles and other data. Unauthorized use or attempted unauthorized use of this system may subject you to both civil and criminal penalties.