Unanimous Jury Verdicts Required For Serious Criminal Convictions -- Supreme Court Rules

[Gameface]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/politics/scotus-jury-verdict-criminal-trial/index.html

Washington (CNN)The Supreme Court said Monday that unanimous jury verdicts are required in state criminal trials for serious offenses, handing a victory to criminal defendants including petitioner Evangelisto Ramos, who was convicted of murder in Louisiana on a 10-2 vote.

 

[JimLes]

Trial by jury is a downright medieval institution. It boggles my mind that it still exists, even though I'm well aware that it's not nearly as common as movies and TV shows make it out to be.

 

[Jeditiger]

South Africa leaves everything up to the judge. I guess both systems would have their pros and cons.

 

[Beer]

Trial by jury is a downright medieval institution. It boggles my mind that it still exists, even though I'm well aware that it's not nearly as common as movies and TV shows make it out to be.

what option is better?

 

[Miggs]

what option is better?

Exactly. What? Leave it in the hands of one judge who might very well have certain awful biases, prejudices or motivations? That’s infinitely worse.

 

[Archie Moses]

Trial by jury is a downright medieval institution. It boggles my mind that it still exists, even though I'm well aware that it's not nearly as common as movies and TV shows make it out to be.

What's a better way?

 

[Archie Moses]

what option is better?

Haha. That's exactly what I was thinking?

Leave it in the hands of the government or prosecutors? Doesn't sound better to me.

 

[Beer]

Exactly. What? Leave it in the hands of one judge who might very well have certain awful biases, prejudices or motivations? That’s infinitely worse.

South Africa leaves everything up to the judge. I guess both systems would have their pros and cons.

Way way easier to corrupt a single person than 12 randos.

 

[Miggs]

South Africa leaves everything up to the judge. I guess both systems would have their pros and cons.

Is South Africa some bedrock of justice?

 

[Beer]

Is South Africa some bedrock of justice?

I believe that would be a negative.

 

[JimLes]

Exactly. What? Leave it in the hands of one judge who might very well have certain awful biases, prejudices or motivations? That’s infinitely worse.

You can appeal, you can have multiple judges, you can not elect judges but appoint them based on competence. There are many solutions better than having 12 morons with no background in law judge a complex case.

 

[checkbookdoc]

Always nice to see the Supreme Court not follow party lines.

Just spitballing, but how about this for a system tweak: You have two separate jury panels. The first is a group of "peers" (about 8 people) and the second group is a three person legal panel.
Then you could do something like:
Unanimous guilty legal & peers = guilty
Unanimous guilty legal & only 1 innocent peers = guilty
Unanimous guilty legal & 2-3 innocent peers = retrial
Unanimous guilty legal & 4+ innocent peers = Innocent

1 innocent legal & unanimous guilty peers = retrial
1 innocent legal & 1+ innocent peers = Innocent

2+ innocent legal (no matter what peers say) = Innocent

Given that I just made up this system, I don't know that it would work out better. But I would expect that it would result in fewer innocent people being incarcerated and also fewer decisions being reversed on appeal (because the legal panel would consider a lot of these at the first stage).

What do you think?