PrepTest 37, Section 4, Question 6
The jury trial is one of the handful of democratic institutions that allow individual citizens, rather than the government, to make important societal decisions. A crucial component of the jury trial, at least in serious criminal cases, is the rule that verdicts be unanimous among the jurors (usually twelve in number). Under this requirement, dissenting jurors must either be convinced of the rightness of the prevailing opinion, or, conversely, persuade the other jurors to change their minds. In either instance, the unanimity requirement compels the jury to deliberate fully and truly before reaching its verdict. Critics of the unanimity requirement, however, see it as a costly relic that extends the deliberation process and sometimes, in a hung (i.e., deadlocked) jury, brings it to a halt at the hands of a single, recalcitrant juror, forcing the judge to order a retrial. Some of these critics recommend reducing verdict requirements to something less than unanimity, so that one or even two dissenting jurors will not be able to force a retrial.
But the material costs of hung juries do not warrant losing the benefit to society of the unanimous verdict. Statistically, jury trials are relatively rare; the vast majority of defendants do not have the option of a jury trial or elect to have a trial without a jury—or they plead guilty to the original or a reduced charge. And the incidence of hung juries is only a small fraction of the already small fraction of cases that receive a jury trial. Furthermore, that juries occasionally deadlock does not demonstrate a flaw in the criminal justice system, but rather suggests that jurors are conscientiously doing the job they have been asked to do. Hung juries usually occur when the case is very close—that is, when neither side has presented completely convincing evidence—and although the unanimity requirement may sometimes lead to inconclusive outcomes, a hung jury is certainly preferable to an unjust verdict.
Requiring unanimity provides a better chance that a trial, and thus a verdict, will be fair. Innocent people are already occasionally convicted—perhaps in some cases because jurors presume that anyone who has been brought to trial is probably guilty—and eliminating the unanimity requirement would only increase the opportunity for such mistakes. Furthermore, if a juror's dissenting opinion can easily be dismissed, an important and necessary part of the deliberation process will be lost, for effective deliberation requires that each juror's opinion be given a fair hearing. Only then can the verdict reached by the jury be said to represent all of its members, and if even one juror has doubts that are dismissed out of hand, society's confidence that a proper verdict has been reached would be undermined.
The jury trial is one of the handful of democratic institutions that allow individual citizens, rather than the government, to make important societal decisions. A crucial component of the jury trial, at least in serious criminal cases, is the rule that verdicts be unanimous among the jurors (usually twelve in number). Under this requirement, dissenting jurors must either be convinced of the rightness of the prevailing opinion, or, conversely, persuade the other jurors to change their minds. In either instance, the unanimity requirement compels the jury to deliberate fully and truly before reaching its verdict. Critics of the unanimity requirement, however, see it as a costly relic that extends the deliberation process and sometimes, in a hung (i.e., deadlocked) jury, brings it to a halt at the hands of a single, recalcitrant juror, forcing the judge to order a retrial. Some of these critics recommend reducing verdict requirements to something less than unanimity, so that one or even two dissenting jurors will not be able to force a retrial.
But the material costs of hung juries do not warrant losing the benefit to society of the unanimous verdict. Statistically, jury trials are relatively rare; the vast majority of defendants do not have the option of a jury trial or elect to have a trial without a jury—or they plead guilty to the original or a reduced charge. And the incidence of hung juries is only a small fraction of the already small fraction of cases that receive a jury trial. Furthermore, that juries occasionally deadlock does not demonstrate a flaw in the criminal justice system, but rather suggests that jurors are conscientiously doing the job they have been asked to do. Hung juries usually occur when the case is very close—that is, when neither side has presented completely convincing evidence—and although the unanimity requirement may sometimes lead to inconclusive outcomes, a hung jury is certainly preferable to an unjust verdict.
Requiring unanimity provides a better chance that a trial, and thus a verdict, will be fair. Innocent people are already occasionally convicted—perhaps in some cases because jurors presume that anyone who has been brought to trial is probably guilty—and eliminating the unanimity requirement would only increase the opportunity for such mistakes. Furthermore, if a juror's dissenting opinion can easily be dismissed, an important and necessary part of the deliberation process will be lost, for effective deliberation requires that each juror's opinion be given a fair hearing. Only then can the verdict reached by the jury be said to represent all of its members, and if even one juror has doubts that are dismissed out of hand, society's confidence that a proper verdict has been reached would be undermined.
The jury trial is one of the handful of democratic institutions that allow individual citizens, rather than the government, to make important societal decisions. A crucial component of the jury trial, at least in serious criminal cases, is the rule that verdicts be unanimous among the jurors (usually twelve in number). Under this requirement, dissenting jurors must either be convinced of the rightness of the prevailing opinion, or, conversely, persuade the other jurors to change their minds. In either instance, the unanimity requirement compels the jury to deliberate fully and truly before reaching its verdict. Critics of the unanimity requirement, however, see it as a costly relic that extends the deliberation process and sometimes, in a hung (i.e., deadlocked) jury, brings it to a halt at the hands of a single, recalcitrant juror, forcing the judge to order a retrial. Some of these critics recommend reducing verdict requirements to something less than unanimity, so that one or even two dissenting jurors will not be able to force a retrial.
But the material costs of hung juries do not warrant losing the benefit to society of the unanimous verdict. Statistically, jury trials are relatively rare; the vast majority of defendants do not have the option of a jury trial or elect to have a trial without a jury—or they plead guilty to the original or a reduced charge. And the incidence of hung juries is only a small fraction of the already small fraction of cases that receive a jury trial. Furthermore, that juries occasionally deadlock does not demonstrate a flaw in the criminal justice system, but rather suggests that jurors are conscientiously doing the job they have been asked to do. Hung juries usually occur when the case is very close—that is, when neither side has presented completely convincing evidence—and although the unanimity requirement may sometimes lead to inconclusive outcomes, a hung jury is certainly preferable to an unjust verdict.
Requiring unanimity provides a better chance that a trial, and thus a verdict, will be fair. Innocent people are already occasionally convicted—perhaps in some cases because jurors presume that anyone who has been brought to trial is probably guilty—and eliminating the unanimity requirement would only increase the opportunity for such mistakes. Furthermore, if a juror's dissenting opinion can easily be dismissed, an important and necessary part of the deliberation process will be lost, for effective deliberation requires that each juror's opinion be given a fair hearing. Only then can the verdict reached by the jury be said to represent all of its members, and if even one juror has doubts that are dismissed out of hand, society's confidence that a proper verdict has been reached would be undermined.
The jury trial is one of the handful of democratic institutions that allow individual citizens, rather than the government, to make important societal decisions. A crucial component of the jury trial, at least in serious criminal cases, is the rule that verdicts be unanimous among the jurors (usually twelve in number). Under this requirement, dissenting jurors must either be convinced of the rightness of the prevailing opinion, or, conversely, persuade the other jurors to change their minds. In either instance, the unanimity requirement compels the jury to deliberate fully and truly before reaching its verdict. Critics of the unanimity requirement, however, see it as a costly relic that extends the deliberation process and sometimes, in a hung (i.e., deadlocked) jury, brings it to a halt at the hands of a single, recalcitrant juror, forcing the judge to order a retrial. Some of these critics recommend reducing verdict requirements to something less than unanimity, so that one or even two dissenting jurors will not be able to force a retrial.
But the material costs of hung juries do not warrant losing the benefit to society of the unanimous verdict. Statistically, jury trials are relatively rare; the vast majority of defendants do not have the option of a jury trial or elect to have a trial without a jury—or they plead guilty to the original or a reduced charge. And the incidence of hung juries is only a small fraction of the already small fraction of cases that receive a jury trial. Furthermore, that juries occasionally deadlock does not demonstrate a flaw in the criminal justice system, but rather suggests that jurors are conscientiously doing the job they have been asked to do. Hung juries usually occur when the case is very close—that is, when neither side has presented completely convincing evidence—and although the unanimity requirement may sometimes lead to inconclusive outcomes, a hung jury is certainly preferable to an unjust verdict.
Requiring unanimity provides a better chance that a trial, and thus a verdict, will be fair. Innocent people are already occasionally convicted—perhaps in some cases because jurors presume that anyone who has been brought to trial is probably guilty—and eliminating the unanimity requirement would only increase the opportunity for such mistakes. Furthermore, if a juror's dissenting opinion can easily be dismissed, an important and necessary part of the deliberation process will be lost, for effective deliberation requires that each juror's opinion be given a fair hearing. Only then can the verdict reached by the jury be said to represent all of its members, and if even one juror has doubts that are dismissed out of hand, society's confidence that a proper verdict has been reached would be undermined.
The author explicitly claims that which one of the following would be a result of allowing a juror's dissenting opinion to be dismissed?
Only verdicts in very close cases would be affected.
The responsibility felt by jurors to be respectful to one another would be lessened.
Society's confidence in the fairness of the verdicts would be undermined.
The problem of hung juries would not be solved but would surface less frequently.
An important flaw thus would be removed from the criminal justice system.
Explanations
We're asked to identify which answer choice reflects something the author said would follow from allowing dissenting opinions to be dismissed.
We have two solid predictions here straight from the last paragraph:
- Effective deliberation would break down, because such deliberation requires each juror's opinion being heard out
- Society's confidence in the fairness of verdicts would decrease
It's going to be one of those two things. Let's take a look.
Nope. There's no evidence for this in the passage and it doesn't match either of our predictions.
No. This is a trap. It scratches at our first prediction about jurors hearing out each other's opinions, but we don't necessarily discuss how that plays into respecting each other. Every word counts. Moving on.
Bingo. This is the answer. It's explicitly stated in the last sentence of the passage and matches our prediction.
No. This might be an outcome, but we don't necessarily have evidence that this would happen, and it certainly isn't stated explicitly.l
No way. This completely mischaracterizes our author's argument.
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