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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28331 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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I think the case is even stronger for juries here: failure to convict requires just one out of twelve to hold out on voting guilty.

Jury dynamics of the "I just want to go home" variety make this weaker, but I think it's still quite strong. One in twelve gives you a good chance of drawing a concientious and disagreeable person that would always refuse to vote guilty if the evidence was unconvincing for them.

I think the case is even stronger for juries here: failure to convict requires just one out of twelve to hold out on voting guilty.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Non-unanimous juries are pretty rare for most things, so what do you mean by here?

I actually think that death penalty cases in most states (I'm not super familiar with Missouri) are weaker because of jury selection dynamics that allow prosecutors to strike jurors who aren't "death penalty qualified" from the jury. Meaning that if the prosecutor intends to seek the death penalty, he can ask the prospective jurors if they believe in the death penalty, and remove any jurors who wouldn't impose it. Naturally, just look at the thread, people who are pro-death penalty are also more likely to be anti-criminal and pro-police in general. So just by asking for the death penalty, the prosecutors are assuring themselves of a friendly audience for their whole case.

Conviction requires consensus. The system is biased strongly against conviction. The defense only needs one juror to take their side. The prosecution needs all of them.

Not really. A hung jury doesn't return ANY verdict, the prosecution can just try again, which in a murder they would tend to do.

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