What is hung jury

When all twelve jurors cannot reach a unanimous agreement about the verdict, then the trial ends in a hung jury.

Judges do not limit the amount of time a jury deliberates about the outcome of the trial. However, once in the deliberation state, there are times it becomes clear that a jury will be unable to reach a unanimous decision. When the jury fails to reach an agreement unanimously, the judge will declare a mistrial.

A mistrial means the results of the preceding trial were inconclusive. For legal purposes, the trial will be treated as though it never happened. Since the trial is treated as though it did not happen, double jeopardy does not apply.

The state retains the right to determine how they will proceed after a hung jury, and each of the three options has its pros and cons, depending on the case. The state has an advantage if it tries the case a second time. It learned where its case was weak and can attempt to correct that in a second trial. The findings of a second trial are binding. If the alleged crime is a felony, especially a violent crime such as a sexual assault , armed robbery, or if the crime involved child pornography , or child molestation , it will be challenging to escape media attention, which can taint the jury pool.

Trials are expensive, time-consuming, and the prosecutor for the state has plenty of other cases waiting for their attention. The state can remain confident that a defendant is guilty, but unsure if they will win a conviction at a second trial. There are usually two things that can happen when there is a hung jury: the judge can ask the jury to reconsider and hope that more time might lead some jurors to change their minds, or the judge can declare a mistrial.

A mistrial is usually the more serious and time-consuming outcome. It usually requires starting the entire trial over again with a new set of jurors.

The rules tend to be a little bit different depending on the jurisdiction and the type of court, but hung juries almost always mean trouble for the lawyers, the parties, and the courts involved. Participants typically do all they can to avoid this outcome. Many court systems around the world use juries to help reach a conclusion in certain cases.

The specifics of the selection and ordering process are different from place to place, but in most instances a jury will consist of anywhere from 9 to 13 people selected from the community. Successful challenge of expert evidence in drugs case.

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What is a hung jury? A criminal trial does not always end with a guilty or a not guilty verdict. Sometimes, a mistrial is declared.

A mistrial is a trial that has essentially been deemed invalid due to an error that occurred in the proceedings or because the jury was unable to reach a consensus regarding the verdict. In a criminal trial, after both the prosecution and the defense teams have presented their evidence, the jury retires to private chambers in order to weigh all of the evidence and render a verdict.

If the criminal case is being tried in federal court, then the jury must reach a unanimous verdict this is also true of civil cases tried in federal court.

If the criminal case is being tried in state court, then it might be different. Almost every state, however, requires that the jury in a criminal trial reach a unanimous verdict. In the event of a hung jury, the judge may instruct the jury to deliberate further to see if they can reach a unanimous decision if given more time.