IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlstud/doi10.1086-670692.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Jury Size and the Hung-Jury Paradox

Author

Listed:
  • Barbara Luppi
  • Francesco Parisi

Abstract

In Williams v. Florida (399 U.S. 78 [1970]), the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case addressing the constitutionality of juries composed of fewer than 12 jurors, ruling that smaller juries are not inconsistent with the Sixth Amendment. In an effort to speed deliberation and reduce the rate of mistrials, 11 states have subsequently adopted juries of fewer than 12 in state felony trials, and 40 states have diminished their jury sizes for state misdemeanor trials. Curiously, however, contrary to the predictions of probability theory and common sense, these reductions in jury sizes have failed to deliver the expected reduction in mistrial rates. In this paper, we offer two interrelated explanations for this fact: informational cascades and the heterogeneity of jurors.

Suggested Citation

  • Barbara Luppi & Francesco Parisi, 2013. "Jury Size and the Hung-Jury Paradox," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 399-422.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/670692
    DOI: 10.1086/670692
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/670692
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/670692
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/670692?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matteo Rizzolli & Margherita Saraceno, 2013. "Better that ten guilty persons escape: punishment costs explain the standard of evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 395-411, June.
    2. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    3. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Shmuel Nitzan, 2001. "The robustness of optimal organizational architectures: A note on hierarchies and polyarchies," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 18(1), pages 155-163.
    4. Neilson, William S. & Winter, Harold, 2005. "The Elimination of Hung Juries: Retrials and Nonunanimous Verdicts," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 1-19, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Schaefer Hans-Bernd, 2020. "Laudatio: Francesco Parisi," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-9, March.
    2. Yannick Gabuthy, 2023. "Blockchain-Based Dispute Resolution: Insights and Challenges," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-9, April.
    3. Francesco Parisi & Ram Singh, 2024. "Decisiveness, Correctness and Accuracy in Criminal Adjudication," Working papers 350, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    4. Parisi Francesco, 2020. "Law and Economics as We Grow Younger," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-20, March.
    5. Guha, Brishti, 2017. "Should Jurors Deliberate?," MPRA Paper 79876, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francesco Parisi & Ram Singh, 2024. "Decisiveness, Correctness and Accuracy in Criminal Adjudication," Working papers 350, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    2. Gu, Chen & Guo, Xu & Zhang, Chengping, 2022. "Analyst target price revisions and institutional herding," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. Ruomeng Cui & Dennis J. Zhang & Achal Bassamboo, 2019. "Learning from Inventory Availability Information: Evidence from Field Experiments on Amazon," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1216-1235, March.
    4. Jonas Hedlund & Carlos Oyarzun, 2018. "Imitation in heterogeneous populations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 937-973, June.
    5. Cao, Melanie & Shi, Shouyong, 2006. "Signaling in the Internet craze of initial public offerings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 818-833, September.
    6. Wei He & Qian Wang, 2020. "The peer effect of corporate financial decisions around split share structure reform in China," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(3), pages 474-493, July.
    7. Kraemer, Carlo & Noth, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2006. "Information aggregation with costly information and random ordering: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 423-432, March.
    8. Fishman, Arthur & Fishman, Ram & Gneezy, Uri, 2019. "A tale of two food stands: Observational learning in the field," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 101-108.
    9. Edgardo Arturo Ayala Gaytán, 2009. "Social network externalities and price dispersion in online markets," Ensayos Revista de Economia, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Economia, vol. 0(2), pages 1-28, November.
    10. Jacob K. Goeree & Leeat Yariv, 2015. "Conformity in the lab," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 15-28, July.
    11. Buechel, Berno & Hellmann, Tim & Klößner, Stefan, 2015. "Opinion dynamics and wisdom under conformity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 240-257.
    12. Boğaçhan Çelen & Kyle Hyndman, 2012. "An experiment of social learning with endogenous timing," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 16(2), pages 251-268, September.
    13. Hiroshi Kitamura, 2007. "Capacity Expansion in Markets with Intertemporal Consumption Externalities," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 07-11, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    14. Bohl, Martin T. & Branger, Nicole & Trede, Mark, 2017. "The case for herding is stronger than you think," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 30-40.
    15. B Kelsey Jack, "undated". "Market Inefficiencies and the Adoption of Agricultural Technologies in Developing Countries," CID Working Papers 50, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    16. Hussinger, Katrin & Pellens, Maikel, 2019. "Guilt by association: How scientific misconduct harms prior collaborators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 516-530.
    17. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2005. "Government policy and the probability of coordination failures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 939-973, May.
    18. Di Bella, Gabriel & Grigoli, Francesco, 2019. "Optimism, pessimism, and short-term fluctuations," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 79-96.
    19. D'Arcangelis, Anna Maria & Rotundo, Giulia, 2021. "Herding in mutual funds: A complex network approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 679-686.
    20. SHIMAMOTO Daichi & Yu Ri KIM & TODO Yasuyuki, 2019. "The Effect of Social Interactions on Exporting Activities: Evidence from Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises in rural Vietnam," Discussion papers 19020, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/670692. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLS .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.