criminal-law
Should a hung jury mis-trial create reasonable doubt for acquittal?
<p>Read all of this and tell me where I'm wrong. So I agree, that a hung jury is in fact reasonable doubt by lack of concurrence, the defendant should be acquitted. If we don't believe in this basic math result then we shouldn't trust having a jury as an integral part of the legal process. If we use this current failed logic of our legal system then why not just from the beginning have 24 or 36 or 48 or 96 jurors and come up with some magical percentage that removes reasonable doubt in their decision. Let alone it will cost the defendant another $100,000 to go to trial again for a mistrial. Every trial thereafter is adding yet another 12 jurors, however it doesn't change the fact that there still remains, after 2 or 3 trials, a juror or jurors who found reasonable doubt out of the 24, or 36 jurors that could not convict.  This basic logic to continue trying the defendant with even one past juror saying not guilty by having reasonable doubt, whether the juror is flawed or not as we can't judge a juror, negates the original intent of the Constitution. The Constitution doesn't say you have a right to &quot;an unflawed perfect human jury of your piers&quot;, it says just simply &quot;a jury of your piers&quot;. For the prosecution to get the right to roll through as many jurors as they want beyond 12 to &quot;fish&quot; for a group that concurs to get a conviction is also unconstitutional.</p>

<h2>You're wrong in the first sentence</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>So I agree, that a hung jury is in fact reasonable doubt by lack of concurrence, the defendant should be acquitted.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>No.</strong> A hung jury just means they can't decide on <strong>any</strong> item they should decide about, for whatever reason. Maybe they all want to see the defendant guilty but can't decide if it is murder 1st or 2nd degree, or one of them is just trying to stay out of work and just is contrarian to <em>whatever</em> the jury deliberates, wether guilty or not guilty. In either case <strong>they can not tell the judge what they can't agree about</strong>. They can only tell the judge that they can't agree on a verdict.</p>
<p>Since the judge can't assume anything about the deliberations, he can only reset trial and swap the jury for one that actually might be able to decide. The whole Jury is tossed out, their deliberations don't matter anymore - their hung state does <strong>not</strong> influence the re-trial.</p>
