The LAW & LAWYERS Blog

A study by Northwestern University says that 1 in 6 jury verdicts are wrong and in most cases the error sends an innocent person to jail.

The study is the first of it’s kind.  Data was analyzed from 290 non-capitol cases in 2000 and 2001 and found that juries return the wrong verdicts 17 percent of the time while judges do a little better and make the wrong decision in 12 percent of cases.

The study also shows that juries sent 25 percent of innocent people to jail.  Judges did a little worse by ordering 37 percent of innocent defendants to prison. 

Guilty people also have some chance of getting off due to error, according to the study.  Juries are likely to clear a guilty defendant in 10 percent of cases and judges in 13 percent of cases.

Juries do convict 70 percent of the time, while judges polled said they would have found the defendant guilty 82 percent of the time.  The agreement rate beteween the judges and juries is only 77 percent.  In cases where they disagree, they can’t both be right, therefore the conclusion is that errors are being made.

This most interesting study will be published in the July edition of the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. 

This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Criminal Defense Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.