What happens at a trail by jury?

Question

do all jurors have to agree on a guilty or not guilty? does it have to be all 12. what would happen if the 12th juror said guilty and the 11 juros said not guilty, do they go with majority?

Answer 1

The answer is a little complicated.

First are they in federal or state court?

Under federal courts it has to be a majority and the total number if jurors must be greater than 9. So far it has ruled constitutional to have a verdict of 11-1, 10-2, 9-3, 10-1, 9-2, 9-1.  The Supreme Court has held that it is not a percentage of jurors and smaller juries have not been tested as yet.

Under state courts, it depends on the state. Each state will have a statute setting out acceptable jury votes.

Everything above applies to criminal trials, where the right to a jury is almost automatic.  Civil trials have different rules.

Answer 2

The way it works is that if even one juror say not guilty and the rest says guilty the judge will asked them to re vote as many as about 5 times and if the jury is what is called deadlocked that they can't all reach an agreement then a mistrial is called and the trial needs to be done all over again with a different jury.

Answer 3

no it has to be a unanimous vote.

Answer 4

If it is a criminal trial, the jury has to be unanimous to either acquit or convict. Otherwise it is a "hung jury" and the state has to decide whether or not to start a whole new trial with a new jury.

If it is a civil trial (a law suit over injury, for example), then the jury just has to be a majority.

Answer 5

All must say guilty or not guilty, otherwise it is a mistrial.