LochFarquar t1_j2a272v wrote on December 30, 2022 at 7:03 PM

Reply to comment by deep_sea2 in ELI5: Why aren't there more hung juries? by appa-ate-momo

> If a case is in trial, there is a more than likely chance that the case is that solid...

I'm not sure this is true. Open and shut cases tend to plead out. A primary reason a case goes to trial is that the defendant won't take a plea deal because they have a strong case for innocence.

Ansuz07 t1_j2a30kz wrote on December 30, 2022 at 7:08 PM

Eh, not really. As the original commenter said, ~94% of cases brought to trail still result in guilty verdicts.

However, ~72% of cases brought to trial don't get convictions on every charge, just some of the charges. It's possible that the defendant may feel that the jury will convict them of a lesser charge than the plea offering the prosecution puts on the table.

deep_sea2 t1_j2a2d6m wrote on December 30, 2022 at 7:04 PM

Still, it's a 95% chance of a guilty verdict.

Weaker cases tend to go the route of the plea as the state tends to offer reduces charges in hopes to avoid chancing it at trial. Also, if there is any weakness in the case, the judge might throw out the case or the state might drop it before it ever reaches trial.

LochFarquar t1_j2a8c6u wrote on December 30, 2022 at 7:43 PM

>Still, it's a 95% chance of a guilty verdict.

We've had many people let off of death row from DNA evidence exonerating them. These are the cases that are supposed to be the most scrutinized and the cases where the system is the most certain. And DNA exonerations are only a subset of the people who are actually innocent and on death row -- it would be foolish to think that DNA has caught all of the actual innocence cases.

Why do we have so many exonerations? Because trials are a highly imperfect tool of determining guilt -- police and prosecutors have vastly more resources than public defenders, people tend to trust the system (I think many people agree with your view that prosecutors only bring cases to trial when they're sure), the guy in the jumpsuit and cuffs looks guilty, jurors have a view that an innocent person would testify but defendants almost never testify based on how the rules of evidence work, etc.

If I say, "many defendants who insist on going to trial do so because they are innocent," and your response is "but they're almost all convicted." That only disproves my point if we assume that all convictions are correct, and I don't make that assumption.

deep_sea2 t1_j2ahcu4 wrote on December 30, 2022 at 8:41 PM

> many defendants who insist on going to trial do so because they are innocent,"

I don't necessarily disagree with that. However, if a person is truly innocent, they have evidence to back that up, and fights all the way in every pre trial option available, there is good chance that it won't go to trial. The state does not like to lose, so they don't take cases to trial that they don't think they can win.

What I am saying is that innocent people rarely go on trial. They don't go on trial because if their evidence is good, it won't make it to trial. The legal work exists in the pre-trial. The main reason innocent people go to jail is because they can't afford good legal representation. They can't afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to mount a legal defense. Since they can't afford it, they typically plead out early.

But, sticking to OPs question, juries are rarely hung because of the state is willing to go to trial, they have a dynamite case (most of the time). The state might be wrong, but they appear be right, and so the decision is rather easy for the jury.

flamableozone t1_j2bhfpc wrote on December 31, 2022 at 12:47 AM

As a percentage, maybe it's rare, but people who are innocent frequently go to trial - people who are innocent frequently even confess in a plea deal. The idea that innocence will produce evidence is just false.

Nice_Sun_7018 t1_j2bxavg wrote on December 31, 2022 at 2:46 AM

The one trial I ever sat on a jury for, the crime was obvious and the defendant definitely did it. There was video footage in addition to the usual evidence. There was no reasonable doubt from a juror’s perspective. We had a fantastic foreman so we did our due diligence in talking over the evidence, but there were no holdouts. It took a lot longer to discuss the sentence than it did whether or not he was guilty.