Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T09:33:30.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Timothy Feddersen  and
Wolfgang Pesendorfer
Timothy Feddersen
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
Wolfgang Pesendorfer
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is often suggested that requiring juries to reach a unanimous verdict reduces the probability of convicting an innocent defendant while increasing the probability of acquitting a guilty defendant. We construct a model that demonstrates how strategic voting by jurors undermines this basic intuition. We show that the unanimity rule may lead to a high probability of both kinds of error and that the probability of convicting an innocent defendant may actually increase with the size of the jury. Finally, we demonstrate that a wide variety of voting rules, including simple majority rule, lead to much lower probabilities of both kinds of error.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 92 , Issue 1 , March 1998 , pp. 23 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Adler, Stephan J. 1994. The Jury: Trial and Error in the American Courtroom. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Austen-Smith, David, and Banks, Jeffrey S.. 1996. “Information Aggregation, Rationality and the Condorcet Jury Theorem.” American Political Science Review 90(1):34–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coughlan, Pete. 1997. “In Defense of Unanimous Jury Verdicts: Communication, Mistrials, and Sincerity.” California Institute of Technology. Typescript.Google Scholar
Feddersen, Timothy J., and Pesendorfer, Wolfgang. 1996. “The Swing Voter's Curse.” American Economic Review 86(3):408–24.Google Scholar
Feddersen, Timothy J., and Pesendorfer, Wolfgang. 1997a. “Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections with Private Information.” Econometrica 65(5):1029–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feddersen, Timothy J., and Pesendorfer, Wolfgang. 1997b. “Abstention in Elections with Asymmetric Information and Diverse Preferences.” Discussion paper #1195. Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Klaven, Harry, and Zeisel, Hans. 1966. The American Jury. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Klevorick, Alvin K., Rothschild, Michael, and Winship, Christopher. 1984. “Information Processing and Jury Decision Making.” Journal of Public Economics 23(3):245–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladha, Krishna K. 1992. “The Condorcet Jury Theorem, Free Speech, and Correlated Votes.” American Journal of Political Science 36(3):617–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladha, Krishna, Miller, Gary, and Oppenheimer, Joe. 1996. “Information Aggregation by Majority Rule: Theory and Experiments.” University of Maryland. Typescript.Google Scholar
Levine, James P. 1992. Juries and Politics. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.Google Scholar
McCart, Samuel W. 1964. Trial by Jury: A Complete Guide to the Jury System. Philadelphia, PA: Chilton Books.Google Scholar
McLennan, Andrew. 1996. “Consequences of the Condorcet Jury Theorem for Beneficial Information Aggregation by Rational Agents.“ University of Minnesota. Typescript.Google Scholar
Miller, Nicholas. 1986. “Information, Electorates, and Democracy; Some Extensions and Interpretations of the Condorcet Jury Theorem.” In Information Pooling and Group Decision Making, ed. Grofman, Bernard and Owen, Guillermo. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Myerson, Roger. 1997. “Population Uncertainty and Poisson Games.” Northwestern University. Typescript.Google Scholar
Myerson, Roger. N.d. “Extended Poisson Games and the Condorcet Jury Theorem.” Games and Economic Behavior. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Selvin, Molly, and Picus, Larry. 1987. The Debate over Jury Performance: Observations from a Recent Asbestos Case. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Institute for Civil Justice.Google Scholar
Wit, Jorgen. 1996. “Rational Choice and the Condorcet Jury Theorem.” California Institute of Technology. Typescript.Google Scholar
Young, Peyton. 1988. “Condorcet's Theory of Voting.” American Political Science Review 82(4):1231–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar