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Jury instructions, also known as charges or directions, are a set of legal guidelines given by a judge to a jury in a court of law. They are an important procedural step in a trial by jury, and as such are a cornerstone of criminal process in many common law countries. The purpose of instructions are to inform the jury about the legal ...
Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492 (1896), was a United States Supreme Court case that, amongst other things, approved the use of a jury instruction intended to prevent a hung jury by encouraging jurors in the minority to reconsider. The Court affirmed Alexander Allen's murder conviction, having vacated his two prior convictions for the same ...
The Virginia Circuit Courts are the state trial courts of general jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Circuit Courts have jurisdiction to hear civil and criminal cases. For civil cases, the courts have authority to try cases with an amount in controversy of more than $4,500 and have exclusive original jurisdiction over claims for ...
In the United States, jury nullification occurs when a jury in a criminal case reaches a verdict contrary to the weight of evidence, sometimes because of a disagreement with the relevant law. [1] It has its origins in colonial America under British law. The American jury draws its power of nullification from its right to render a general ...
A citizen's right to a trial by jury is a central feature of the United States Constitution. [1] It is considered a fundamental principle of the American legal system. Laws and regulations governing jury selection and conviction/acquittal requirements vary from state to state (and are not available in courts of American Samoa), but the fundamental right itself is mentioned five times in the ...
The Capital Jury Project (CJP) is a consortium of university-based research studies on the decision-making of jurors in death penalty cases in the United States. It was founded in 1991 and is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The goal of the CJP is to determine whether jurors' sentencing decisions conform to the constitution ...
The process of jury selection and managing voir dire is a key area of study for criminal trial attorneys. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] The Center for Jury Studies, [ 18 ] a project of the National Center for State Courts, has studied voir dire , as has The American Bar Association, [ 19 ] and summaries of research conducted on voir dire are freely ...
Jury instructions sometimes make reference to the juror's oath. For example, the Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions developed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit for use by U.S. District Courts state: [14] You, as jurors, are the judges of the facts.