Jury Instructions Are the Guidelines Discussion Chapter

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The constitutionality of the need for a unanimous jury verdict has been determined by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court has ruled that, in state cases, such verdicts are constitutionally acceptable (Coughlan, 2000). The Court ruled that justice could still be served with less than a unanimous jury verdict as long as the jury was composed of a group of individuals representative of a cross section of the community who have been free to deliberate and to do so free from outside intimidation.

In my opinion, the Supreme Court's decision in Apodaca v. Oregon (Apodaca v. Oregon, 1972) was decided with an eye toward expediency than justice. The logic behind the unanimous verdict is based on the sanctity of reasonable doubt and protecting the innocent and should be a sacred element of our judicial system. The decision in Apodaca was a compromise that violates our system's principles.

Mistrial/New Trial

A trial judge, either by common law or court rule, depending on the jurisdiction, has the discretionary power to grant a mistrial, thereby terminating an on-going proceeding or to order a new trial based on significant procedural or evidentiary error, serious misconduct of a party or counsel, or by the occurrence of an event that materially impairs a party the right to a fair trial.

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The declaring of a mistrial or the granting of a new trial is an extreme remedy that should be granted in only limited conditions.

Mistrials are generally the result of a situation in which a jury is unable to reach the proscribed level of agreement needed to reach a verdict. In such situation, a "hung jury" is declared and a mistrial is declared. In both criminal and civil cases, a new trial can be conducted.

New trial decisions become necessary when significant procedural or evidentiary errors occur in the trial proceedings. These pose serious obstacles to the proceedings proceeding in a fair manner and require the judge to take the extreme measure of terminating the trial and ordering that a new trial take place. Because of the time, expense, and inconvenience of this remedy, the action is taken very infrequently and courts are reluctant to take this approach. In most cases the court will attempt to exhaust other remedies prior to granting a new trial......

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