I was watching a Law and Order rerun last night, and near the end of the episode, the jury comes back and unanimously finds the defendant guilty. The judge then says that he didn’t think the prosecution made its case and is therefore entering a verdict of not guilty – the defendant is free to go. I know this is only a TV show, but can judges really do that? And if so, what’s the point of having a jury if the judge can disregard their verdict?
That was a great episode
Judges can do that, but it’s rare and they have to have overwhelming evidence that the jury didn’t do the job. When the prosecution/defense has tread the line of mistrial throughout the entire course of the trial is when it will usually happen (according to papa Grendel).
Does anyone have any case cites? I thought this was damn interesting as well.
I believe that is called a “Directed Verdict.” I also believe that a judge can direct a verdict of not guilty at any point in a criminal trial. I also believe that the judge may not direct a verdict of guilty if the jury came up with a not guilty. (or at any other time) I also believe in leprechauns, and I am not a lawyer.
Remember back to 1997, with the au pair trial? The jury came back with a verdict of guilty of second-degree murder, and the judge reduced the verdict to guilty of involuntary manslaughter, sentenced her to time served, 279 days, and freed her. So there’s at least one real-life trial where this happened.
Of course, the defense had hoisted itself on it’s own petard, using legalities to prevent the jury from coming back with a verdict of guilty of manslaughter. They could only come back with a verdict of guilty of murder or not guilty .
I think you’re right that a judge can’t increase the severity of the verdict, though, like you, IANAL.
Actually, you’re talking about two things, though they may be functionally the same.
A “directed verdict” is the judge telling the jury how to find – i.e., “I direct you to find the defendant not guilty of murder in the first degree.”
A “judgment notwithstanding the verdict” is the judge setting aside the jury’s decision and replacing it with his or her own.
In the “Law And Order” episode in question, the judge issued a judgment notwithstanding the verdict. He set aside the jury’s determination and replaced it with his own.
The thing to remember is that in the American judicial system, the judge and jury have separate functions. The judge decides questions of law and the jury decides questions of fact. So, in a jury trial, the judge does not have the ability to decide questions of fact (such as whether someone committed a particular crime or not), because that is the function of the jury. However, the judge may decide as a matter of law that there is not sufficient evidence to find the defendant guilty of a particular crime. He is not specifically weighing the particular evidence; he is saying there isn’t enough of it to find the defendant guilty. In such a case, the judge may either direct the jury to find the defendant not guilty of the crime in question (before the jury deliberates), or he may set the jury verdict aside (after the jury deliberates) and issue a judgment not withstanding the verdict.
Directed verdicts are very rare as, as you can probably see, they can be construed as an infringement by the judge into fact-finding, which is properly the province of the jury. Judgments notwithstanding the verdict are even rarer, as a judge who finds the evidence insufficient as a matter of law would generally direct a verdict and not allow the jury to deliberate. But a judge might allow deliberations to go forward in the hopes that the jury reaches the “right” conclusion; if it does not, he then must issue a judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
It should also be noted that both procedures only apply in jury trials. In judge trials, the judge acts as both the fact-finder and the law-interpreter, and obviously would not need to direct himself to find something, or set his own verdict aside.
IANAL, but I got a B in Civil Procedure last year. [The following applies to Civil Procedure. I know essentially nothing about Criminal Procedure.]
A directed verdict is when the judge sends a case to a jury, but tells them what they have to vote. A judgment notwithstanding the verdict is when the judge sets aside the jury decision. These are both now called “judgment as a matter of law” (JMOL). For constitutional reasons, you have to make a JMOL motion before the verdict in order to be entitled to make a renewed JMOL motion after the verdict. The basic idea is that juries determine facts and judges determine the law. So if the undisputed facts can lead to only one conclusion of law, the judge can decide it. (Undisputed doesn’t necessarily mean that both sides agree on what a fact is, but that pretty much all of the evidence only supports a single determination).
A judge will sometimes send a “clear” case to the jury even though he could decide it on a JMOL motion, because it will be harder to appeal from the jury verdict. Also, if he sends it to a jury and then rules notwithstanding their verdict, an appeals court can simply reinstate the verdict if they disagree with him. If he grants the first JMOL motion, then the case has to go through a whole new trial, which is pretty inefficient.
Jodi, you type too fast. 
A couple of years ago an NFL player (Brian Blades) was convicted of manslaughter in a Florida court, but the trial judge set aside the verdict and acquitted the individual.
This made for a lot of discussion on Court TV after the fact and I bet that the network was very happy for an outcome like that.
Not suprisingly, several of these verdicts have found their way to the Supreme Court. http://www.jurisline.com has a few that come up under the abovementioned term “judgment notwithstanding the verdict”:
Hazen Paper v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604 (1993).
TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources, 509 U.S. 443 (1993). A really sweet one. Check it:
Petitioner’s criticism of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals’ opinion is based largely on the Court’s colorful reference to classes of “really mean” and “really stupid” defendants.
As a Virginian, I’d like to take this opportunity to say, “ah, West Virginia, how I don’t miss ye.”
Makes sense now. This leads to a related question to which I may already have an answer. On an episode of “The Practice” (yes, all my knowledge of the law comes from either Dick Wolf or David E. Kelley), Dylan McDermott was defending a guy he knew was guilty and had no real defense. His strategy was to go for “jury nullification” (I’m not sure if this is a real legal term or a TV fantasy phrase) – he was going to argue that yes, his client did what he was accused, and he wasn’t insane, but he was justified in doing so (I think he may have killed a guy who raped his daughter, or some such) and the jury should basically disregard the law and set him free.
Now, if a judge can set aside a jury’s verdict, it seems to me that even if McDermott succeeded, any self-respecting judge would set aside the non-guilty verdict and enter a verdict of guilty.
Possible answer: someone had posted that a judge cannot increase the charges, he could only lower them; perhaps a judge can set aside a guilty verdict but not a not-guilty verdict.
Other possible answer: David E. Kelley made the whole thing up.
Thoughts?
Jury nullification is a hotly debated topic and you can probably find good arguments pro and con for it on the web.
Arguing in favor of it is a pretty risky trial maneuver.
From what I’ve read about it, it’s used when a jury thinks that the law that a defendant is charged with breaking is unconstitutional or immoral for some reason.
E.g. You’re on a jury where someone is being tried for marijuana possession. You don’t think that is a crime regardless of what the state thinks. So you, and your 11 fellow jurors, vote to acquit even though the defendant was caught in the act with a ton of evidence.
That’s the way I perceive it. Others know a lot more about this.
And you’re exactly right. A judge may enter a not guilty verdict notwithstanding the jury, but not a guilty one.
I would have thought that most states’ bar associations would have made it unethical for an attorney to appeal to a jury for a nullifying verdict. Huh.
Not only would it be unethical, but wouldn’t it piss off the judge if in your closing statement, you argued “Ignore everything the judge tells you in his jury instructions. Decide the case this way because I’m right.”
Which, again, swings the discussion back to the issue of the proper function of the judge versus the proper function of the jury. The jury is supposed to decide the facts and apply the law to the facts (roughly speaking; someone could pick apart this assertion of “application”). The judge is supposed to tell the jury what the law is that it is to use. The jury is not supposed to determine the validity of the law; that is not its function. So a verdict amounting to “jury nullification” would amount to a mistrial. In a civil case, you’d get to retry your case. In a criminal case, however, a defendant cannot be tried twice for the same offense, so if the trial ends in a jury nullification, the defendant walks.
Marijuana is a good example. If the law says that marijuana is illegal – or chocolate frosting or white shoes or whatever – the function of the jury is to decide if the defendant broke that law – not to say “you know, the outlawing of marijuana/chocolate frosting/white shoes is ridiculous and we will not enforce it.”
Since attempting to obtain a null jury verdict is tantamount to attempting to obtain a mistrial, to say it is generally frowned upon by the legal establishment is an understatement. It is an attempt to misuse the legal system to get a criminal defendant off, regardless of the interests of justice. Personally, I think an attorney who would intentionally seek a null jury verdict would be violating their duty as an officer of the court, and I would imagine that disciplinary action by the Bar would be very appropriate.