The Jury’s Higher Conviction Threshold Sample Clauses

The Jury’s Higher Conviction Threshold. Xxxxxx and Xxxxxx, through a reasoned process of elimination, satisfied them- selves that one source of judge-jury disagreement is that judges and juries apply different standards of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases. “[T]he jury’s more stringent view of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is one explanation for disagreements between the two deciders in criminal cases.”43 Xxxxxx and Xxxxxx even regarded the major evidentiary effect they detected—the jury’s greater tendency to believe the defendant—as subject to the competing explanation of disagreement: that the jury applied a higher evidentiary threshold to convict than the judge.44 The NCSC data contain evidence confirming this belief in the jury’s more stringent view of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the data suggest a pattern somewhat more complex than Kalven and Xxxxxx were able to report. 42For an analysis of complexity as perceived by judges, juries, and attorneys, see Xxxxxxx Xxxxx, Criminal Case Complexity: An Empirical Perspective, 1 X. Xxxxxxxxx Legal Stud. 331 (2004). 43Kalven & Zeisel, supra note 1, at 189. 44Id. at 181. Table 4: Judge and Jury Agreement, by Evidentiary Strength of Case Adjudicator Whose View of Evidentiary Strength Classifies Evidence as Weak, Medium, or Strong Judge Jury Jury Acquits Jury Convicts Jury Acquits Jury Convicts