Jury Behavior
Scholarly research on jury behavior in American non-capital criminal felony trials reveals that juror outcomes appear to track the opinions of the median juror, rather than the opinions of the extreme juror on the panel, although juries were required to render unanimous verdicts in the jurisdictions studied. Thus, although juries must render unanimous verdicts, in run-of-the-mill criminal trials they behave in practice as if they were operating using a majority rules voting system.
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Famous quotes containing the words jury and/or behavior:
“[When asked: “If women voted, would they not have to sit on juries?”:] Many women would be glad of a chance to sit on anything. There are women who stand up and wash six days in the week at 75 cents a day who would like to take a vacation and sit on a jury at $1.50.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)