Legal News

Should ?10 Angry Men? Be Enough to Convict?

By Ashby Jones

What do Oregon and Louisiana have in common? It’s hard to think of much, off the top of our heads, but a column by Adam Liptak in today’s NYT elucidates: the states are the only ones in the country to allow criminal jury convictions without unanimous verdicts. Each allows convictions by a 10-2 vote.

The Supreme Court, in a pair of decisions in 1972, said this was permissible, that a conviction didn’t constitutionally require a unanimous verdict. But, according to Liptak, the decisions “were badly fractured and internally inconsistent,” and “made assumptions about jury behavior that have been called into question by more recent research.”

The court could, if it so chooses, have another bite at the apple. Scott Bowen, an Oregon man sentenced to 17 years in prison for sex offenses after being convicted by only 10 jurors, has asked the Supreme Court to reexamine the issue. According to Liptak, the case against Bowen was based on statements from his 15-year-old daughter, who, Bowen alleged, had made up the accusations.

According to Liptak, he men who drafted the Sixth Amendment understood criminal convictions to require 12 votes, a fact which Oregon conceded in its brief recommending the court not hear the case. "But,” read Oregon’s brief, “it does not follow from that historical fact that a unanimous jury became a constitutional guarantee.”

But defense lawyers say the rule was devised to make obtaining convictions easier. And according to the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, most felony convictions in the state are the products of nonunanimous juries.

But Shari Seidman Diamond, an authority on jury behavior at the Northwestern University law school, said unanimity is important, partly because it encourages more diligent deliberations. A supporting brief filed by Professor Diamond and 16 other scholars said that "Empirical studies conducted since 1972 show that jury deliberations are in fact less vigorous when unanimity is not required."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 07, 2009 (boomark / email).