re: Louisiana's Non-Unanimous Jury Verdict - SB243

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Prosecutors just have to convince 6 unanimously?

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I'll defer to the crim defense guys, but the ONLY time a DA agrees to a 6 person jury is when its a slam dunk.

And in case anyone thinks that last bit isn't true:

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Among the bill’s supporters, Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, once an Orleans Parish prosecutor, described Louisiana as “a little bit schizophrenic” when it comes to jury verdicts, painting support for the bill as “a vote for liberty.”

Claitor recalled hiking felony charges against some defendants to ensure he could have two “mulligans” on a jury — meaning votes that wouldn’t matter.

“If I had a particularly hard case and I had the opportunity,” he said, “I would up-charge them because it’s easier for me to convict on 10 out of 12 than six out of six.”

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LINK

I'm not aware of a single major push in any state, or in the Federal judiciary, to move away from a unanimous criminal jury verdict requirement. And considering unanimous criminal juries have been the norm since the founding of this country, there has been plenty of time for people to complain on the subject

ETA: And I'd like to again reiterate that a hung jury does not mean an acquittal. For all practical purposes, it's as though the trial never happened. Any defendant that was in jail awaiting trial is going to still be in jail. Any bond conditions for someone who was out of jail will remain. The State will simply have to try them again.

And considering that the overwhelming majority of criminal jury trials are knocked out within a single work week, we aren't talking about a huge burden on the State in retrying it.

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We should allow 7-5 verdicts. There are too many antisocial shitheads out in public as it is. Build more jails and fill them.

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Jesus, the Founders must be rolling in their graves

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ETA: And I'd like to again reiterate that a hung jury does not mean an acquittal. For all practical purposes, it's as though the trial never happened. Any defendant that was in jail awaiting trial is going to still be in jail. Any bond conditions for someone who was out of jail will remain. The State will simply have to try them again. And considering that the overwhelming majority of criminal jury trials are knocked out within a single work week, we aren't talking about a huge burden on the State in retrying it.

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If the state can just keep trying again, at what point does the defendant ever get to go free?

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You know too many assholes are out there who will contribute nothing but misery to others

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Sure, point conceded.

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yet you've rationalized your way into thinking they are getting a less than fair shake. You believe you're doing some noble job. Enjoy contributing to the misery of others. It takes a special, blinded sort.

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Yeah, I'm the one rationalizing my way to something, with my crazy "maybe we should go back to the kind of juries considered to be the bulwark of liberty by this country's founding fathers". It's certainly not you, who is advocating for a system that would imprison a staggering number of innocent people, just to make sure you get all your badies

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If the state can just keep trying again, at what point does the defendant ever get to go free?

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I mean, are we envisioning a scenario in which jury after jury hangs? While I think that scenario to be the height of unlikely, eventually I imagine the Court would be inclined to offer some kind of bond relief.

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I also shouldn't have taken a personal shot at you. I'm sorry.

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No worries

It's been a bit of a pet project of mine to try to raise the standards of civility on this board

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I was being bit facetious with the 7-5 comment, but, 10-2 should remain and jails should be expanded.

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I hear ya. But why are you supporting 10-2? Again, a hung jury does not an acquittal make. I see a significant amount of good that can be had by forcing jurors to debate their colleagues when there is dissent, and I see very little bad. Are prosecutors really so lazy that it's better that we convict more innocent people than to possibly run the risk of having a few more trials when a jury hangs?

There is practically zero evidence of that happening, even anecdotally.

And everyone say it with me: a hung jury isn’t an acquittal.

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Nah, I didn't "misremember" anything. The judge told us the previous two previous guilty verdicts were thrown out due to technicalities involving the previous trials. He didn't go into any other details about that.

Why in the hell do you think you know more about what happened than I do when I was there and you weren't? The other jurors even elected me to be jury foreman.

How arrogant are you?

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Easy, sailor.

I said you either misremembered or the judge and/or prosecutor were incompetent. Based on your response, I'll now narrow it down to saying that the judge was negligent in giving you just enough information to be dangerous and that your prosecutor was utterly fricking incompetent in not getting in the prior complainant testimony. Further, either the previous judges or prosecutors were also incompetent for being such colossal frickups that this individual got multiple new trials.

Better?