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Comment by md_ | Hacker News Reader

Plenty of other countries allow conviction by simple or supermajorities.

I'm far from a punitive-justice kind of person, but arguing that a single dissenting juror should be sufficient to acquit strikes me as not at all obvious.

As long as I can convince one in twelve that I'm innocent, I should be considered innocent?

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Having been on a jury in the US one time (attempted murder), the purpose of this system is probably not at all obvious. The idea is to put 12 people in a room and force them to agree to the same thing. You can deliberate almost any amount of time you want. If you try to tell the judge after a single day of delibrations that you are a hung jury, the judge will force you to stay longer. Only in extreme cases where the jury has been hung for a very long time does the judge allow a mistrial.

So the idea is to force 12 people to convince each other of one idea or the other.

In the final play of the Orestia trilogy by Aeschylus, the goddess Athena convenes a jury of twelve citizens to decide the guilt of Orestes in the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra.

The jury is evenly split, and Athena adds a final vote for innocence, calling it her precedent.

It is unfortunate that the United States did not follow this ancient judicial custom EDIT: to acquit if half the jury refuses to convict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresteia#The_Eumenides

(I live in a midsize U.S. town that happens to have the oldest community theater that performs Greek plays in mask every year.)

> It is unfortunate that the United States did not follow this ancient judicial custom.

Requiring a simple majority of the jury for a serious criminal conviction, but splitting ties for the defense, rather than the US practice of requiring a unanimous verdict for conviction?

>So the idea is to force 12 people to convince each other of one idea or the other.

You said nothing to contradict the GP. If someone is on trial, all they need is one of the twelve to not be convinced of guilt. Your phrasing of "force" that one person to change their mind is absolutely insane to me.

Well, I think the clarification is important. It's not like you just go for a vote, and if there's no consensus outcome, boom, mistrial.

Judges aim for consensus, and juries are intended to debate/discuss until they can reach it. So the complaint about "well, prosecutors can just keep trying" rings a little more hollow in that case.

(Again, there are a ton of other reasonable complaints--bullshit forensic "science", the fact that expert witnesses cost money that defendants don't have, mandatory minimum sentences, federal prosecutors' aversion to risking losses at trial, the awful penal system, etc. But this is a weird one to be hung up on, I think.)

Having been stuck on several courts-martial panels in the military as well as a civilian jury later for an assault trial, I found the military court system seemed, in many ways, more fair to the accused.

On the flip side, the verdict does not have to be unanimous.

Just to clarify, in the US at least, juries don't determine innocence, but rather "not guilty", aka, inefficient evidence of guilt.

From cornell law website:

> A not guilty verdict does not mean that the defendant truly is innocent but rather that for legal purposes they will be found not guilty because the prosecution did not meet the burden.

Of course. I should have said "acquitted", as opposed to a hung jury.

As an interesting quirk, Scottish law has three verdicts: "guilty", "not guilty" and "not proven" where the latter is basically "we think you're guilty but the prosecution sucked so we have to let you go"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven

This turned out to be a big deal because of the trial of the Lockerbie bombers who blew up a Pan-Am flight over Scotland and were ultimately tried under Scots law. There was a real possibility that the bombers could have gone free with a "not proven" verdict.

While its true Megrahi and co were tried under Scottish law, it wasn't in a court room in Scotland. There are a number of features of how the Megrahi case was tried by Scottish judges in an area of the Netherlands on a US airforce base that was legally declared part of Scotland that are unusual, it was a very unique process that has never been repeated:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Court_in_the_Netherla...

> https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/apr/07/lockerbie

There are aspects of how that trial unfolded that have long been subject of concern even from victims families (Dr Jim Swire famously); politically a "not proven" verdict would have been so unpalatable I'm honestly not sure how much chance there ever was of that occurring - politics is how we ended up in the bizarre Scottish courtroom in the Netherlands situation in the first place. Even the way in which the judges deliberated is not standard for a typical High Court of Justiciary case in its normal home in Scotland.

This reminds me of video games where you can report players for "harassment", "cheating", and "low skill". "Low skill" reports go to /dev/null.

Moral of the story is: Sometimes you need to give people the button they really want to push, even if it does nothing.

This almost never happens. The jury basically has to not make up its mind for at least a week. (and the judge can keep it going as long as they want) Its almost never just 1 person either. But if one person is willing to hold their ground for a week it means there is something going on. Either that person is a committed ideological actor, saw something, or had some major bias. It takes an immense will to deal with 11 other people for a week straight who all want to go home and get back to their lives, usually if its just one person they give in after a few days to the social pressure. So if a jury hangs it usually points to more than 1 disagreeing. This is where we get into "compromise" verdicts, where maybe 1 person is being stubborn but will go along with the group if they are allowed to win on one point, which is why prosecution throws the kitchen sink at criminal defendants.

Who cares about statistics I saw it happen and finally the next presidential administration appointee hit up the prosecutor to stop on or after the third trial

>Either that person is a committed ideological actor, saw something, or had some major bias.

...Or they haven't been convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.

You realize as a juror, your job isn't to kowtow to the state. You're literally the last bulwark between said state and your fellow man. If anything, ypu need to be picking hard at any case you get presented, especially if it smells like a political/railroad case.

I would argue holding this stance makes you a committed ideological actor that would get struck during selection if found out.

Not saying i disagree with you....

>committed ideological actor

Implies "I made up my mind before going in."

I'm more "Convince me that this man is the only person who could possibly have done what you allege."

If they presented no compelling evidence that he did it, and as someone with technical understanding, I'd have questions to raise if things did not sufficiently add up.

Sorry, deliberations will continue until either the prosecution or these other jurors get with the program I'm not putting someone away while I entertain a reasonable doubt.

To play devils advocate, if unanimity is required for guilt why doesn’t lack of unanimity mean innocence?

Sure, maybe. I guess you can argue two things:

1. That outcomes should be binary, i.e. "guilty" or "innocent" with no mistrials. 2. That outcomes should be decided by unanimous, supermajority, majority, or some other arrangements.

I don't think either of those arguments are especially fundamental. My point was only that it's a bit hyperbolic to view the whole hung jury rule as some sort of Bill of Rights violation.

The high bar for acquittal is what makes the hung jury rule look like a Double Jeopardy problem.

It gives too much power to one person. It only takes one hold out to hang a jury.

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