
Supreme Court says criminal convictions require unanimous juries - wonderwonder
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/20/supreme-court-says-criminal-convictions-require-unanimous-juries.html
======
deathanatos
The text of the Sixth Amendment,

> _In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy
> and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the
> crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously
> ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the
> accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have
> compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
> Assistance of Counsel for his defence._

Left me wondering where the right to unanimous juries comes from, since it
doesn't _seem_ to be mentioned in the actual amendment, and the article
doesn't really tell me. Even SCOTUS blog, unless I missed it, doesn't say.

Thankfully, there's Wikipedia[1]:

> _Originally, the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury
> trial indicated a right to "a trial by jury as understood and applied at
> common law, and includes all the essential elements as they were recognized
> in this country and England when the Constitution was adopted." Therefore,
> it was held that juries had to be composed of twelve persons and that
> verdicts had to be unanimous, as was customary in England._

The next paragraph was a bit odd in light of my question:

> _When, under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court extended the right
> to a trial by jury to defendants in state courts, it re-examined some of the
> standards. It has been held that twelve came to be the number of jurors by
> "historical accident," and that a jury of six would be sufficient, but
> anything less would deprive the defendant of a right to trial by jury._

Sure, but what prevents us from calling unanimity a historical accident as
well? (Still, personally, I think having to have 12 — or maybe just 6 — people
come to agreement on a conviction is for the better. I'd rather let a few
guilty people go free than convict an innocent one.)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Impartial_jury)

~~~
badrabbit
Another way to look at it might be to ask why a jury is even needed. Why not
just two jurors? If a simple majority is all it takes then why does it matter
how many jurors there are so long as it is more than one. And if it isn't a
simple majority then unanimity is the only resonable option. Whereas judges
deliberate,issue opinions and sentences, jurors have no such mandate.

A second way to look at it would be to consider that the accused has
presumptiom of innocence,therefore the juror's purpose is to remove that
presumption. If there is no unanimity then you're saying it is better to
punish the guilty even if some innocents get punished in the process. If
jurors represent society then one juror's opinion in a 10 person jury
represents 10% of the population.

~~~
naasking
> And if it isn't a simple majority then unanimity is the only resonable
> option.

I don't see why it's the only reasonable option. Consider if we discover that
90% agreement has the exact same false conviction rate, but a much better true
conviction rate. That would justify a 90% majority over unanimity.

Maybe unanimity is maybe the only reasonable option when you don't have any
other informatoin, but that bar can move once you have a better understanding
of the phenomenon.

~~~
wonderwonder
Issue is that we don't have these numbers. People are consistently proven to
have been innocent after serving decades in prison for crimes they did not
commit but were convicted of. In addition, as only 2 states in the US allowed
for a majority conviction, the data set would necessarily be small.
Compounding that is that we essentially have no real way to determine who was
guilty but found innocent as once you are found innocent that's generally the
end of the road. The primary concern in this situation should be increasing
the difficulty of convicting an innocent person. The guilty going free should
be a secondary matter.

So while I understand your point, as you stated, we have no other information
and as such the numbers we would need to validate it simply don't and won't
exist.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
>> we don't have these numbers

>> consistently proven

Your argument does not jive.

~~~
zamadatix
It's certainly possible to know something happens without having exact numbers
e.g. we know people consistently die from COVID but we won't have a truly
solid number for the death rate until COVID dies down and we do antibody
testing. And that's now! Think of how uncertain we were about the death rate 2
months ago yet we were still certain people were dying from it.

------
chippy
In England, unanimous juries were relaxed in 1967 to allow majority ones (i.e.
10/12). The reason for this was because there was a number of jury
intimidation cases. A criminal conspiracy need to get to one juror to make the
whole case fall apart.

Was this consideration discussed by the supreme court in the USA?

(edits - no results ctrl-f for "conspiracy", "intimidation", "mafia",
"organized" in
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf)
)

~~~
pc86
This sounds like a feature, not a bug. The impact of letting a criminal go
free (presumably to commit more crime, and have more chances to put them away)
is minuscule compared to the impact of locking an innocent person in prison.

Yes, it means that guilty people will go free. But relaxing the constraints of
what "convicted" means that by definition there will be innocent people
convicted by 7-11/12 juries.

~~~
SquishyPanda23
The impact of systematically allowing criminals to go free if they can
sufficiently intimidate or blackmail a single juror is also very high.

If courts are unable to punish well connected criminals then it's difficult to
keep a healthy democracy.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but it seems like there should be some
redundancy in the system.

~~~
pc86
I'm not saying the impact is _low_ , only that it's _lower_ than locking up
innocent people for crimes they didn't commit, potentially for years or
decades.

------
korethr
Having been on a jury, I thought requiring a unanimous decision for a
conviction was how juries operated in the US in general. I'm surprised to
learn that there were states that were an exception. I'm not surprised to
learn that said exceptions have racist origins and use. There's been a lot of
bullshit on the books put there for racist reasons.

I'd thought said BS was largely gone from the books. Well, regardless how how
much BS still remains or doesn't, I'll happily take one more bit of it being
removed.

~~~
Natsu
Basically, there are two statues (Louisiana & Oregon) which do not require
unanimous juries. It seems like this was done to prevent a few dissenters from
preventing convictions.

The split in the court is because some justices are worried about undoing
something that has been used for more than a hundred years and upsetting a ton
of cases.

~~~
pwned1
Louisiana got rid of their non-unanimous jury law a couple of years ago.
Oregon was the last state with such laws as of yesterday's Supreme Court
opinion.

~~~
Natsu
This may overturn prior verdicts, though, too, if I understand it right.

------
pkaye
Looks like limited impact in most states.

> The decision was widely expected and will have limited impact nationwide, as
> the only two states that have allowed split jury convictions in recent years
> are Louisiana and Oregon. Those two states could now face more than a
> thousand requests for retrials, according to documents they submitted to the
> justices.

------
PhantomGremlin
The CNBC article is quite good, but I like to read SCOTUSblog for their
analysis. They add a little more detail:

[https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/04/opinion-analysis-with-
deb...](https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/04/opinion-analysis-with-debate-over-
adherence-to-precedent-justices-scrap-nonunanimous-jury-rule/)

------
gorgoiler
In all aspects of life unanimity is an excellent tool for making decisions.
Abstention (in lieu of outright dissent) helps a lot too. Learning to
negotiate in a non-adversarial way is an undervalued skill.

Slight more contentious is that it seems not unreasonable to expect unanimity
from the Supreme Court itself.

~~~
devit
Not sure about that: unanimity means that anyone can hold hostage the whole
process and make arbitrary demands in exchange for their vote, so it really
only works when everyone can be trusted to act in good faith or when it
doesn't matter if the process is indefinitely blocked.

~~~
gorgoiler
That’s a good point. For me, situations with a bad faith actor are edge cases
and there are ways to remove bad actors from the decision making process that
are separate to the decision making process itself.

Not really refuting your point, and definitely thinking about it in specific
contexts. For example a consistent bad faith actor on a team at work can
expect to eventually be removed from the team, and avoiding hiring these
people (or bringing them into decision making processes) is one of the goals
of a good hiring process. It’s usually framed as “culture fit”, to drop
another euphemism.

~~~
HelloMcFly
Politically, situations with a bad faith actor are not edge cases. That has a
way of cascading down into all different aspects of society.

------
traderjane
Supreme Court opinion:

[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf)

------
dkdk8283
Great! If there is any doubt I would rather see innocent people freed even if
it means a few guilty people walk.

Once the police like you for a crime they’ll likely find a way to make it
stick. Even if it’s just circumstantial. Most people plea.

Lawyers are highly educated performance artists. Prosecutors are pretty
persuasive.

Look at DA Larry Krasner in PA. He’s fighting corruption.

------
mehrdadn
I'm confused at the article. What part of the 6th amendment ( _" In all
criminal prosecutions..."_) distinguishes "non-serious" crimes from "serious
crimes"?

Also, does anyone know where hung juries fit into this? You would think that
you're not-guilty until you're proven guilty, so what is this weird 3rd-state
of "not guilty and also not not-guilty" based on in the 6th amendment?

~~~
kd5bjo
The amendment doesn’t, but this particular opinion does. The court simply
wasn’t asked about lesser crimes, and so didn’t consider them or rule about
them. If it ever comes up, I’m sure this case will still be strong precedent.

As far as hung juries goes, the unaninmity cuts both ways: the entire jury has
to agree on acquital for that to be the trial outcome as well. In the case of
a hung jury, the whole process failed to come to a conclusion, so everything
is the same as if the trial had never occurred: the defendant is still charged
and unconvicted, and still has the right to a speedy trial. Because the first
trial was voided entirely, double-jeopardy doesn’t apply.

~~~
mehrdadn
Re: hung juries, I do understand what _happens_ ; I'm saying it just doesn't
make sense to me. The constitution says:

 _"... nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in
jeopardy of life or limb; .."_

On the face of it it seems like complete nonsense to say that you're not
placed in jeopardy of life or limb until _after_ the verdict is delivered.
Then why were you sitting in that seat being tried for a serious crime? Were
you just chopped liver until the jury delivered their verdict? And suddenly
when they acquit you then it turns out your life were(/are) was in jeopardy
after all? I feel like I must be missing something...

As for the opinion, I guess I can understand that if that's the case, but I'd
be a little bit surprised if they got a case about non-serious crimes and went
"just kidding, the same reasoning applies here too".

~~~
kd5bjo
This is getting outside my knowledge as a curious amateur, but I believe that
the legal system considers the formal charge to be the manifestation of being
“put in danger of life or limb,” and the justice system has a duty to resolve
that fairly and expeditiously one way or the other. In a sense, the second
trial after a mistrial is really a continuation of the first rather than a
wholly new proceeding.

> I’d be a little bit surprised if they got a case about non-serious crimes
> and went “just kidding, the same reasoning applies here too”.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all, except at such a case making it all the way to
the top. A lot of research effort goes into drafting these judgements, because
they are usually quite long-lived. Any material relating specifically to the
treatment of lesser crimes was likely ignored during the initial phases
because it was out-of-scope.

It’s not just the outcome, but also the reasoning that sets precedent. Any
appellate judge is free to draw parallels between the facts here and the facts
of the case they are adjudicating, especially if this case is cited by one of
the parties (presumably the defence). It’s then the job of the prosecution to
describe why this ruling shouldn’t apply, which feels like an extremely hard
task given the reasoning presented.

------
sq_
Very interested by the lineup on Gorsuch's opinion:

> Gorsuch was joined in part by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer,
> Sonia Sotomayor and Brett Kavanaugh.

I'm sure someone with more experience would see how it makes sense, but as
someone who isn't well-versed in the workings of the Supreme Court, I'm
surprised that set agreed on something.

~~~
icelancer
It's somewhat expected. You have three liberal judges and two that are very
pro-civil liberties (Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, plus Thomas who wasn't mentioned
in that lineup).

Kagan on the dissent side is the only interesting thing for me; I would have
liked to hear her thoughts, but she just joined Alito.

This is why the "conservative" vs. "liberal" wing of the court is a bit of a
red herring in a lot of cases. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are both very "liberal"
when it comes to individual liberties of people being infringed on by the
government.

------
jl2718
What are the secondary effects of this? Less conviction? More crime? Longer
trials? More expensive legal process? Less jury trials? More judge autonomy?

I feel like my education in government had a strong bias in philosophy versus
economics. That is, principles versus effects. In the practice of government,
the bias flips.

~~~
ls612
Very little, as only two states still had non-unanimous juries and Louisiana
already abolished the practice last year.

------
ogre_codes
Being an Oregon transplant, I’m happy to hear this little legacy of Oregon’s
racist past is buried.

------
k__
Juries seem like a bad idea for criminal conviction in general.

~~~
programmertote
I grew up in a country where there's no jury system in place. There, the
judge(s) are all that matter in deciding the outcome of the case and as you
can imagine, a lot of corruption happens (it is easier to bribe 1-3 judges
than to a dozen jury for example).

I am curious (a serious question) what better system you have in mind to
replace juries.

~~~
vidarh
Norway uses a mixed system (it used to have juries for some cases; the very
last jury decision after the law was changed was logically unsound - two
questions, one of the four combinations was impossible; the juries returned
_that one_ ) of panels of judges (from 1 to 7) depending on the type of case.
For the most serious criminal cases the panel will have 2 professional legally
trained judges and 5 "lay judges" \- basically jurors of a sort, but unlike in
a jury trial all of the judges (professionals and lay judges) deliberate
together and vote together. In a 7 judge panel, at least 1 of the professional
judges and at least 4 of the lay judges must vote guilty for a conviction.

This feels to me like it gets most of the benefit of both a jury and of
professional judges. It avoids a lot of the issue of whether or not the lay
judges understand the jury instructions and the legal aspects they're asked to
judge on, but also ensures the prosecutor does need to convince both the lay
judges and the professional judges for a conviction.

~~~
pwned1
We also have the tradition of jury nullification in the US where jurors are
free to acquit if they feel as though the law itself is unjust. Professional
jurors would no doubt shy away from that because their employment depends on
the government. In addition, in the US, jurors don't make decisions on the
law, just the facts.

~~~
vidarh
In Norway jurors didn't make decisions on the law either, which is why the
distinction between jurors and lay judges exists. It's kinda moot now as there
aren't juries anymore, but both systems existed in parallel (for different
types of cases and severity)

It's not really that they are "free to acquit" either as much as that there is
no mechanism for preventing it.

The issue is controversial enough that the several circuits have made it clear
courts can present jury instructions designed to minimize it and/or prevent
the jury from being made aware of the ability.

And this ability has also been extensively abused, e.g. for racist purposes.
While it has also been used to attack unjust laws, I'm not convinced it is
worth the risks.

------
lsiebert
To be pedantic, serious offenses now require unanimous juries. They didn't
examine less serious offenses in this case.

------
parenthesis
The Supreme Court non-unanimously decides that criminal convictions require
unanimous juries.

~~~
pnw_hazor
The jury has a different role than appellate courts. The jury is a fact
finder.

Among other things, appellate courts look at the application of those facts to
the law. Appellate courts also can review if the facts determined by the jury
(or a judge in non-jury cases) are unreasonable, whether fair procedures were
followed -- including jury make-up or jury process.

------
adelHBN
I thought this WAS already the law - whatever happened to "beyond a reasonable
doubt?"

~~~
selimthegrim
Welcome to Louisiana.

~~~
icelancer
Louisiana had already rescinded this rule by the time the case got to the US
Supreme Court, in fairness to them. Oregon, on the other hand...

~~~
selimthegrim
Louisiana is responsible for many other wonderful innovations like ensuring
jury trials for non-petty misdemeanors. Don't count them out yet.

------
onetimemanytime
Very, very disturbing it took so long for this to be ruled on. Honestly, I'm
shocked.

------
schaefer
if your take a random sample of 12 people in the USA, one of them is going to
be way out there.

When i served jury duty, our discussion of guilt meandered into the philosophy
of fundamentally unknowable universe (much to my dismay). how could anyone
really know what happened unless we observe it with our own eyes?

I brought up the victim's seven stab wounds. Apparently evidence like that is
subjective to some...

IMO: unanimous is too high a bar.

------
qwerty456127
Can somebody explain how is this a good thing? Whenever nobody in a group has
a different opinion on a serious subject that always seems extremely
suspicious to me. Communist commissions used to vote this way traditionally.

~~~
aka1234
> "Whenever nobody in a group has a different opinion on a serious subject
> that always seems extremely suspicious to me."

With a criminal conviction we're talking about exercising the state's monopoly
on violence and coercing an individual to give up their liberty and freedom.

There shouldn't be a differing opinion on guilt. If there is, the state hasn't
proven the subject's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If there is reasonable
doubt, the person should be found not guilty.

~~~
qwerty456127
Is it possible to prove somebody guilty with 100% confidence at all? I doubt
anything beyond the realm of mathematical formulae can be proven with 100%
confidence.

~~~
jaredmosley
No, that's why it is "beyond a reasonable doubt". A guilty conviction is not
proving someone guilty, it is saying that your peers have no reason to doubt
your guilt.

------
ThePowerOfFuet
Court.

~~~
floatingatoll
Email the mods using the footer Contact link and they’ll fix it.

~~~
lonelappde
Why? It's funnier this way. I expect the opinion was ... brief.

------
VWWHFSfQ
The autonomy of USA's "states" is getting erroded more and more everyday.

~~~
supernova87a
What do you mean?

~~~
saagarjha
It seems like the parent commenter is unhappy that the Supreme Court ruled to
end a state practice, likely one that they supported, even though such
“interference” is explicitly spelled out in the Constitution.

~~~
supernova87a
I express my puzzlement, because I would love the parent to come back and
explain.

I would bet that the principle the parent embraces is not "states have a right
to exercise autonomy" but rather "states have a right to exercise autonomy on
those things I agree with".

You know, like when people advocate for states' rights, except when a state
decides to do something like narrow the right to handguns, or environmental
regulations, or something like that.

I thought that we agreed as a country that things guaranteed in the
Constitution applied regardless of what state.

