It was the first time it's happened to me. After a week of testimony and hours of deliberation, the jury declared they would never be able to reach a verdict. They were "hopelessly deadlocked" as the law requires.
What it really means is that I must endure the stress of a trial again. The victim and witnesses must answer questions on cross-examination about their past misdeeds. The police officers must recount their investigative steps and what they missed. All the secrets are exposed and both sides have to regroup to try it again.
Everyone says the hung jury is better than an acquittal, which is true. But the only benefit to an acquittal is a finality to the proceedings. The loss is difficult to take and usually creates a tremendous amount of self-examination, but that chapter is closed both for myself and the victim. A hung jury pushes all of my work into a state of limbo. I can't really proceed with other cases as this one will be tried again soon.
The advantage of a retrial is the case weaknesses were clearly exposed. I need to do a better job in jury selection addressing the issues and a better job at trial explaining why the police did some things, but not others. I've stopped counting the number of trials I've done at this point. During every trial, I encounter something I've never seen before. It's what keeps me coming back I guess. It never gets boring.
I guess the good thing is, you do get a second chance at conviction. Two questions out of this: is there a legal limit to the number of times someone can go on trial for the same thing? i.e., what if you get a second hung jury? The other question, when a jury declares it is "hopelessly deadlocked" does the judge get involved in any way to see if they can reach a decision? I suppose that would be tough to do without looking like the court is trying to push for one way or the other.
ReplyDeleteThere is no limit but at some point the sides would probably negotiate a plea. When a jury says it is deadlocked the judge provides an "Allen Charge". Basically, the judge tells the jury to continue deliberating and to reevaluate their positions with an open mind. If the judge decides the jury is hopelessly deadlocked after another note or more then she will declare a mistrial and order a retrial.
DeleteDoes the prosecutor assigned to a case decide to retry the case or does a bureau chief or someone from the executive team have to give the go ahead?
ReplyDeleteDepends on the office. For my office, we retry it unless there is some compelling reason that came up during the trial.
DeleteI've had two, didn't retry either. One I dismissed (the poll was 9 NG, 3 G), the other I offered a reduced charge and sentence from my initial offer, and he took it.
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