WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will consider overturning a criminal conviction by a 10-2 jury vote in Louisiana. The justice acted Monday, four months after Louisiana voters amended the state constitution to prohibit non-unanimous verdicts in criminal cases. Oregon is ...

Tagged with: juries Louisiana non-unanimous verdicts Supreme Court

A Maryland appeals court has overturned a man’s conviction on charges of sexual assault of a minor, saying the jury was improperly shown a recorded police interview with the defendant in which the detective repeatedly voiced disbelief with the protestations ...

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WASHINGTON — There was nothing subtle about the ethnic slurs a juror in Colorado is reported to have made during deliberations over a Hispanic defendant charged with inappropriately touching teenage girls. Two other jurors claim their colleague determined that defendant ...

Tagged with: juries jury secrecy Supreme Court

Appellant contends the evidence was insufficient to sustain the convictions of either rape or kidnapping and that the circuit court abused its discretion in failing to give a modified Allen charge to the jury.

Tagged with: baltimore city juries Kehoe kidnapping rape Sept. Term 2012 sufficiency of the evidence

Allowing trial judges to unilaterally reclassify the status of an individual’s driver’s license and bypass the MVA system severely impedes the ability of the MVA to monitor which Maryland-licensed drivers are currently permitted to drive.

Tagged with: Berger criminal procedure driver's license juries Montgomery County probation Sept. Term 2013 voir dire

The instruction on transferred intent was “a square peg that never fit the round hole of the State’s theory of the case,” Judge Douglas Nazarian wrote for the three-judge panel.

Tagged with: juries Jury instructions murder transferred intent

By twice indicating his acceptance and satisfaction with the jury as empaneled, without qualification, appellant waived appellate review of his claim that the State exercised its peremptory challenges in violation of Batson; however, his convictions should have merged for sentencing purposes.

Tagged with: Baltimore County constitutional law criminal procedure juries merger sentencing Sept. Term 2013 Sharer

1. Did the court err in failing to dismiss the charges against [Bell] due to a violation of his Constitutional right to a speedy trial? 2. Did the trial court abuse [its] discretion by declining to excuse a juror after she disclosed an emotional reaction to the testimony of the state’s primary witness?

Tagged with: criminal procedure juries Montgomery County Sept. Term 2013 Wright

Following denial of what he claimed was his “fourth” motion to correct an illegal sentence, Kitchen presents four questions which are reducible to one: Was the verdict invalid, and hence the sentence illegal, because the clerk did not poll the foreman when polling the jury as to their verdict?

Tagged with: baltimore city Berger criminal procedure juries sentencing Sept. Term 2013

We do not find it necessary to inquire into the merits of the alleged flaws in the verdict-rendering process. We agree with the State that they deal with alleged procedural flaws that are not cognizable under Maryland Rule 4-345

Tagged with: baltimore city criminal procedure juries Moylan sentencing Sept. Term 2014 verdicts