Slippery Slope - Jury Size and Jury Verdict Requirements - Legal and Social Science Approaches (From Policy Studies, P 477-483, 1980, Bertram H Raven, ed. - See NCJ-74698)

• NCJ Number: 74698
• Author(s): B Grofman
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 18 pages
• Grant Number(s): SOC 77-24702
• Sponsoring Agency: National Science Foundation
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Earlier version of this article was delivered as a paper at a graduate colloquium of the Department of Political Science, State University of New York at Stony Brook in September 1979. Reprinted from Law and Policy Quarterly, V 2, N 3 (1980).

Annotation

Six recent Supreme Court cases dealing with the constitutionality of decisionmaking juries with fewer than 12 members or operating under verdict requirements less stringent than unanimity are reviewed. Justices' views are contrasted with data drawn from social science research and from statistical models of group decision processes.

Abstract

In the past decade, five Supreme Court decisions have upheld decisions made by juries of less than 12 or by juries permitting less than unanimous votes. In the only other case dealing with the constitutionality of such decisions, the Court decided against the constitutionality of a five of six verdict vote. Of these six decisions, only in one, Ballew v. Georgia (1978), was extensive use made of social science empirical studies of verdict outcomes and the nature of the deliberation process. There is ample social science research which models verdict outcomes, examines the relationships between jury size and jury deliberation and between jury size and jury representativeness, and explores the question of jury judgmental accuracy. However, the Court rarely employs the empirical evidence published; even in the Balew case, Justice Blackmun misread the text upon which he based his opinion. With the considerable body of social science mock-jury data and modeling efforts now available to draw upon, a strong case for the superiority of 12-member juries over 6-member juries can be made. However, such a case is unlikely to be made by the present court. Law and social science continue to be at best uneasy bedfellows in the Burger Court. Notes, a list of cases cited, and 37 references follow the text.