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Comment by samatman | Hacker News Reader

That's all it takes for a hung jury, yes.

In which case the prosecution will have plenty of grounds to screen for that in the next trial, that next trial will happen, and then the guy gets convicted of first degree murder. Presuming he's found in the first place.

There's no world in which all twelve jurors vote not guilty if the defendant is demonstrated to be the assassin beyond reasonable doubt. That simply won't happen, it's a delusion. Hanging the first trial would merely delay the inevitable, and I don't expect that to happen either.

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The deep south was infamous for simply not convicting white men for killing black men that had "raped" white women.

No matter the evidence.

Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Perry are both walking free after unambiguously murdering people in broad daylight.

You're right, I do find it less likely that the murderer of a CEO would get the same kind of treatment as murderers of civil rights protesters, but there are examples in recent history of people walking free despite unambiguously murdering people in broad daylight for political reasons.

You need consensus for conviction, not the other way around.

You need consensus either to convict, or to _declare_ someone not guilty.

In the US there is an important distinction between the presumption of innocence, and its declaration in a court of law.

Someone with a hung jury or mistrial is still presumed not guilty by the law, but may be tried again for the same crime, because the prohibition against double jeopardy only applies to those cleared of a charge, which mistrials don't do.

In this case, it's a hard guarantee that a mistrial would be tried again. So yes, you would need consensus in a jury to prevent the conviction from eventually occurring, because there's no realistic chance of it happening twice.

It won't happen once either, but even if it did, it won't happen twice.

>no realistic chance of happening twice

This is where you lose me. If you have a hung jury that means you have at least an 11/12 chance of it happening again.

It's not going to happen once either.

What makes you so confident that 12/12 people would agree to convict this assassin? All signs indicate otherwise to me.

It's very unlikely but it can happen.

In the UK a few years back a statue of a slave trader was thrown into the river in Bristol, and the people charged were acquitted in what is commonly considered to be a case of jury nullificaiton.

Now, it's definitely true that getting a jury to nullify a murder charge is significantly different, but I'd argue there is a lot more anger about the healthcare system and CEOs making huge profits from human suffering in the US than there was about that statue, and much more generally too.

You also have a climate where a convicted felon just got made president, and another in a long line of presidents pardoning people they have close personal relationships too with clear conflict of interest. If you wanted to pick a moment where people in the US were losing faith in the justice system, now seems like a good choice, and if you believe the system is rigged, are you going to judge it on technicalities, or how you feel?

Do I think it is likely? No.

"No world it could happen", "delusional", and "won't happen"? I wouldn't be so sure.

It's delusional to think you'll win Powerball just because you bought a ticket. But that's a case where the odds of _someone_ winning are reasonably high, due to the very large sample size.

This is like if $billionaire announced that he will publicly generate a fair signed 32 bit number, and give a specific person a billion dollars if the number is exactly 1234567. It would be delusional to think that will happen, there's no world in which it will, and it won't.

People who think otherwise are ignorant of the process of jury selection, and how straightforward it is to find twelve citizens who don't want to spit directly in the face of the judicial process (and judge) and let a bloody-handed murderer off the hook because of feelz. They're unable to separate their social media fantasies from the real world.

I think you vastly underestimate how common and strong the anger is, and how low belief in following the letter of the law is. It's unlikely, but not winning the lottery unlikely.

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