Non-Unanimous Jury Proposal

Presidential candidate Pete Wilson’s recent attack on citizens who serve on juries in this state (“Wilson Backs Amendment on Non-Unanimous Juries,” July 18) is motivated by nothing more than a desire to promote his political ambitions. Demeaning citizens who take the time to serve on juries, who put up with long waits and often unpleasant physical surroundings seems a strange way to curry favor. Wilson and his comrades in the California District Attorneys Assn. have created a straw dog against whom to rage. Wilson tells us that “10% of all criminal jury trials [in California] result in hung juries.” Significantly, what he does not tell us is that 95% of criminal defendants plead guilty in California and never go to trial. Since the actual number of trials is small, the number of hung juries (10%) is even smaller, and the number hung by one or two jurors is smaller still (2.4% of 10%). The rest are hung by sizable majorities of citizens who are just not happy with the evidence the prosecutor has put on.

What is glossed over by Wilson is the fact that there is a very good reason to keep juries unanimous. Jury research shows that the quality of deliberations is diminished when jurors don’t feel they have to listen to each other. Less time is spent on thoughtful consideration of the evidence and the process becomes one of merely tallying votes.

The problem is clearly not, as Wilson contends, that hung juries are clogging California’s courts. The problem is instead the desire to create such fear in our hearts and minds that we will be willing to forgo our fundamental freedoms so that a politician may fulfill his personal ambitions.

ANNE E. FRAGASSO, President

California Attorneys for Criminal Justice

Los Angeles

* Wilson proposes that juries can convict on a 10-2 vote. In a democracy, that proposal might make sense if juries are told that they can judge the law as well as the facts. Otherwise, look at the ridiculous results when jurors do not know that they are applying the “three-strikes law” to a minor crime.

DAVE ENGLISH

Rancho Palos Verdes