Category: Jury Trials

Jury Trial and Crimes on Different Occasions

by · Jun 21, 2024 1:53 pm

Today the Supreme Court decided the latest installment in the continuing saga of jury trial on sentence-determining facts. The case is Erlinger v. United States, No. 23-370.

The Armed Career Criminal Act provides for an enhanced sentence for violators with three prior violent felony convictions of crimes “committed on occasions different from one another.” So who decides if the occasions are different? No one who has followed the Apprendi line of cases will be surprised to learn that the Court held that the right of jury trial extends to this determination.

On the facts of the case, the “different occasions” element is so obvious that a jury would be able to decide it without even sitting down, yet the case goes back to convene a jury for this purpose, unless this can be considered a “harmless error.” Continue reading . . .

A SCOTUS Warning Shot on Small Juries

by · May 28, 2024 11:03 am

Historically, trial juries were twelve people. Is this number constitutionally required? The Supreme Court said no 54 years ago in Williams v. Florida. The decision was 7-1, with Justice Marshall dissenting alone on this point.

However, the Supreme Court’s views on such matters have changed, and four years ago the high court dumped a precedent approving nonunanimous juries, despite the reliance of states on that precedent. See Ramos v. Louisiana. Today the Supreme Court declined to take up a Florida case challenging the Williams precedent, Cunningham v. Florida, but Justice Gorsuch fired a warning shot across the bow of states that allow juries of less than 12 in criminal cases. Continue reading . . .

Inconsistent Verdicts

by · Feb 21, 2024 7:53 am

This morning the U.S. Supreme Court issued its first decision in a criminal case for this term. In McElrath v. Georgia, No. 22-721, the high court unanimously reversed a decision of the Georgia Supreme Court regarding inconsistent verdicts. This is not a surprise.

Juries sometimes issue inconsistent verdicts in a single case. That is, they may render verdicts on different counts tried together that contradict each other in the facts that they necessarily require. What effect does the Double Jeopardy Clause of the U.S. Constitution have when a jury issues such a verdict in a state criminal case? Continue reading . . .

Judicial Override, the Sixth Amendment, and Retroactivity

by · Nov 16, 2022 9:55 am

Sentencing a murderer to death generally requires three decisions in the United States today: (1) a factual finding that the defendant is guilty of the highest degree of murder; (2) a further factual finding that an additional aggravating factor is true;* and (3) a discretionary decision that death is the appropriate punishment for this murder and this murderer, considering both aggravating and mitigating factors.

The first decision must be made by a jury under the Sixth Amendment, unless the defendant waives that right. In Ring v. Arizona, the Supreme Court held that the second decision must also be made by a jury, though it previously held the opposite multiple times. The third decision may be vested in a judge (or panel of judges) or a jury by state law. Only Nebraska currently vests the decision in judges.

If a state can vest the decision in the judge entirely, can it also have a jury make a recommendation but still leave the final decision with the judge no matter what the jury recommends? Of course. If a state has such a system but decides to change it and make the jury’s life-sentence recommendation binding, does the U.S. Constitution require that it make that change retroactive, overturning final judgments entered under the old system? Of course not.

Yet that question is before the Supreme Court today in the case of hired hit man Kenneth Eugene Smith. [Update: Stay denied without comment or dissent.] Continue reading . . .

Juries Less Than 12

by · Nov 14, 2022 11:38 am

In its 2020 decision in Ramos v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court held that nonunanimous juries are unconstitutional in the guilt phase of criminal trials, and no doubt to the finding of sentencing factors to which the right of jury trial extends under the Apprendi rule. The high court did so despite the heavy reliance of two states on its contrary decision on the precise point nearly a half century earlier.

Last week, two Justices fired a shot across the bow of the six states that still allow juries of less than twelve people. Those states would be well advised to get rid of their small juries—prospectively only—immediately, before the Supreme Court does so retroactively. Continue reading . . .

Florida’s Single-Juror-Veto Law Defeats Justice in Parkland Case

by · Oct 13, 2022 2:45 pm

For the sentencing phase of capital cases, some states have true unanimous verdict laws. The jury must deliberate until it is unanimous one way or the other, just as they do in the guilt phase. If they are truly hung, the penalty trial is done over before another jury. California and Arizona have true unanimity laws.

Unfortunately, when Florida rewrote its sentencing law in the wake of a Supreme Court decision throwing out the old one, the Legislature unwisely chose a single-juror-veto law. In this system, if the jury votes 11-1 for the death penalty, the view of the one prevails over the view of the eleven, and the defendant gets a life sentence. That system introduces needless arbitrariness into sentencing, as the luck of getting one juror who has hard-core anti-death-penalty views (and possibly lied on voir dire) or who is willing to accept claimed mitigation that most people reject will result in a life sentence for one defendant under circumstances where others will be sentenced to death. Continue reading . . .

Does knowledge of a demographic fact equal racial bias?

by · Apr 18, 2022 12:09 pm

Mark Twain once referred to a jury as “twelve men … who don’t know anything and can’t read.” He was exaggerating. Yet, this morning three Justices of the United States Supreme Court dissented from the Court’s refusal to take up a case of alleged juror bias for review, when the claim of bias was the juror’s statement of a demographic fact that is undeniably true. Continue reading . . .

CA Law Authorizes Biased Jurors

by · Feb 3, 2022 10:02 am

A California law which took effect in January prohibits prosecutors from removing people who are biased against police officers from juries in criminal trials.  The California jury selection process in criminal cases allows the prosecutor and the defense attorney 10 peremptory challenges for most felony trials, and 20 each for capital cases.  Prior law allowed these challenges to be exercised for any reason other than solely on the potential juror’s race, which is unconstitutional.  AB 3070 Weber (D Los Angeles) signed into law by Governor Newsom in September of 2020, prohibits the use of a peremptory challenge to remove a juror who considers police and/or the criminal justice system racist.  The law also supports objections by defense attorneys if the prosecutor challenges potential jurors who are inattentive, incoherent or threatening.  In a courtroom with a impartial judge who allows a challenge to a gang member who admits that he hates cops, the removal of the gang member from the jury will now become grounds for appeal.  The law does not prevent defense attorneys from removing potential jurors who express support for law enforcement or have friends or relatives who are police officers, prosecutors or judges, or who have been victims of crime.  Essentially Governor Newsom has approved a law that eliminates the constitutional right of an impartial jury.  The bill’s author, Shirley Weber, was appointed in 2020 by Governor Newsom to serve as Secretary of State.  She is the person in charge of California elections.

More Coverage on the CA Death Penalty Case

by · Jun 3, 2021 10:31 am

LA Times reporter Maura Dolan has this comprehensive piece on the California Supreme Court’s oral argument in People v. McDaniel.  The question before the court is whether or not the law requires that a jury decide beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant should get the death penalty or life without parole, and the jury must also be unanimous in deciding the reasons for a capital verdict?  This requirement has never been part of the law or any accepted precedent.  If the court agreed, a ruling would probably throw out hundreds, if not all, previous death sentences in California.  An important takeaway from yesterday’s argument was the questioning of the murderer’s lawyer by Justice Goodwin Liu, a key liberal member of the Court, who asked if it is possible  “that this issue has simply been missed this entire time? For 150 years, we have missed this issue?”

Jury Nullification Gets Nullified

by · Feb 1, 2021 4:23 pm

The highest court in Maryland, the state Court of Appeals, has outlawed jury nullification in the most forceful terms I can remember seeing.  This is the right result.  Jury nullification is simply inconsistent with any intelligible concept of law.  One of the main functions we want law to do is to let citizens know what the rules are.  If we are to have, on a completely ad hoc basis, different rules depending on which jury you happen to draw (i.e., crack is legal in one jury’s mind but still illegal in the mind of the jury across the hall, or the age of consent is 13 in one jury’s mind but 17 in the mind of the jury across the hall), then whatever you have, it’s not law.

Continue reading . . .