Jury Size and the Hung-Jury Paradox

34 Pages Posted: 6 Jan 2012 Last revised: 24 Sep 2012

See all articles by Barbara Luppi

Barbara Luppi

Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE) - Faculty of Business and Economics; University of St. Thomas School of Law

Francesco Parisi

University of Minnesota - Law School; University of Bologna

Date Written: January 3, 2012

Abstract

In the United States, the 1970 Supreme Court decision Williams v. Florida 399 U.S. 78 (1970) reduced from twelve to six the minimum number of jurors required under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. In the hope of improving the legal process with faster deliberation and fewer mistrials, eleven states have used juries of less than twelve in felony cases. This has given origin to an unprecedented natural experiment on jury decision-making. Contrary to the predictions of probability theory, the reduction in jury size has not brought the expected reduction in the number of mistrials. In this paper we provide a possible explanation for this fact. We formulate some propositions considering the case of jury deliberation in the presence of informational cascades. These results have implications not only for juries, but also for democratic theory.

Keywords: Condorcet’s jury theorem, jury size, mistrial, cascade behavior

JEL Classification: K14, K41, D7, D03

Suggested Citation

Luppi, Barbara and Luppi, Barbara and Parisi, Francesco, Jury Size and the Hung-Jury Paradox (January 3, 2012). U of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. 12-31, Minnesota Legal Studies Research Paper No. 12-01, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1980387 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1980387

Barbara Luppi

Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE) - Faculty of Business and Economics ( email )

Viale Berengario 51
41100 Modena, Modena 41100
Italy

University of St. Thomas School of Law

2115 Summit Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55105
United States

Francesco Parisi (Contact Author)

University of Minnesota - Law School ( email )

229 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States

University of Bologna ( email )

Piazza Scaravilli 1
40126 Bologna, fc 47100
Italy

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