Are you more likely to be acquitted by a unanimous 6-person jury or a 10-2 non-unanimous jury?

A perennial debate among trial lawyers (and a hot topic before the Supreme Court) is the fairness of non-unanimous jury verdicts in criminal cases. I guess the first uncertainty is the extent to which this is a math question. Can math account for all variables here or is the question predominately qualitative? Assuming math can help, it occurs to me that the Wizard and others here are peculiarly fit to tackle it. Here’s one redditor’s take, with context. https://www.reddit.com/r/scotus/comments/kg8ef0/oc_are_you_more_likely_to_be_acquitted_by_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

What say you?

I’m confused.

Doesn’t the jury have to be unanimous to find you guilty?

If they’re not unanimous, then aren’t you not guilty by default?

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I’m confused.

Doesn’t the jury have to be unanimous to find you guilty?

If they’re not unanimous, then aren’t you not guilty by default?

. If they do not come up with a unanimous decision it is what is known as a mistrial. Happens all the time on Law and Order SVU!

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I’m confused.

Doesn’t the jury have to be unanimous to find you guilty?

If they’re not unanimous, then aren’t you not guilty by default?

In most criminal cases, a unanimous decision is needed. Louisiana used to operate under a hybrid system of English Common Law and Napoleanic Law where you didn't need it, but it's been years since I was in school and they may have changed it.

It wasn’t until April of this year that the Supreme Court held that non-unanimous criminal verdicts are unconstitutional. Now it’s grappling with the question of whether that rule applies retroactively, to people already convicted by less that a unanimous jury. Only Oregon an Louisiana allowed non-unanimous convictions.

The question has broader implications for civil cases, though, which are usually decided by non-unanimous verdicts.

I've been on a jury in the UK where, after a few days' deliberations, they would accept a majority decision. Technically this might have enabled a decision to be made when there was one or two on the jury who didn't agree with the rest. On the other hand it makes it less possible to nobble "the jury" as you have to get to at least three to overturn an obvious decision. (btw When I was there they did a draw at the start of the week which jurors from the pool went on which case, so actually no-one knows who will be on which case.)

Assuming this was a mathematical problem with a 50/50 chance for the decision of each jury member; with six members there's a 1 in 64 chance; whereas with twelve members there's about a 1 in 51 of being guilty.

Since April, there have been a number of cases in which lawyers successfully argued that the rule should apply retroactively.

Quote: SOOPOO

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I’m confused.

Doesn’t the jury have to be unanimous to find you guilty?

If they’re not unanimous, then aren’t you not guilty by default?

If they do not come up with a unanimous decision it is what is known as a mistrial. Happens all the time on Law and Order SVU!

I stand corrected.
Mistrial. Which leads to a new trial.

But my point still stands that the subject of this thread is nonsense. Or at least incorrectly worded.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I stand corrected.
Mistrial. Which leads to a new trial.

But my point still stands that the subject of this thread is nonsense. Or at least incorrectly worded.

It’s not. You are skipping posts in this thread that explained that in at least parts of Louisiana you could be convicted with a 10-2 jury vote. And the Supreme Court recently overturned that practice as unconstitutional.

Isn't this just hitting a few buttons on a binomial probability calculator? If so, I am extremely disappointed to see this quote coming from someone on the Supreme Court: "I am not myself, I must confess, capable of doing this math, but somebody could."