Abstract
It is often suggested that requiring juries to reach a unanimous verdict reduces the probabilityof 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.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 23-35 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | American Political Science Review |
Volume | 92 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 1998 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Sociology and Political Science
- Political Science and International Relations