In 1995, jurors found O.J. Simpson not guilty of murdering his ex-wife and a friend of hers. In 2013, jurors found George Zimmerman not guilty of murdering a teen whom Zimmerman had been following.
In both cases, the verdicts prompted both loud criticism and vocal support, as Americans divided -- partly along racial lines -- over whether justice was done.
But also in both cases, a key element of the proceedings helped render the verdicts impervious, ensuring not only that the decisions would be final but also that the justice system would not undergo radical reform:
That element is the demand that the jury's verdict must be unanimous.
On Saturday as in 1995 and on countless other occasions, this honored tradition in America's criminal courts once again proved its worth.
ADVERTISEMENT
Where else in American life could six people -- not quite pulled at random off the street, but almost -- make a hugely public decision that they know will be nationally controversial, then exit the building with 100 percent certainty that their decision will stand?
Critics of the verdict in the Zimmerman case are voicing extreme outrage, exactly as critics of the O.J. Simpson verdict did 18 years ago.
And in most other commercial and governmental aspects of modern America, those critics likely could have their way, as long as they mustered the numbers to be counted as a solid majority or supermajority.
But not when it comes to a verdict in trial. Why?
Unanimity isn't the only reason why verdicts have such staying power. After all, two states -- Oregon and Louisiana -- no longer require unanimity, instead letting juries reach verdicts with 11-1 and 10-2 majorities.
Then again, the other 48 states still insist on unanimous juries, and the U.S. Supreme Court has declared unanimity in federal trials to be a constitutional right.
That's because unanimity gives a verdict an immediate and rock-solid legitimacy that a court can't earn any other way.
For one thing, "the requirement puts a serious line of defense between the accused and the government, with its vast resources," as a Wall Street Journal column put it in 2010.
ADVERTISEMENT
"You want to stack the deck a little against the government," says Thaddeus Hoffmeister, a law professor at the University of Dayton, in the column.
For another, unanimity is so difficult and rare in human life that observers almost always treat it with great respect. It's a little like generosity: Not a trait that comes naturally to our selfish and quarrelsome species, so one that's deeply appreciated when it does appear.
As happened in '95 and on a number of other occasions, America now has split into two opposing camps. One side says justice was served in the trial, the other claims an injustice was done.
But at the core of the verdict stands this fortress of a truth: In Florida, every member of the six-person jury agreed. So, while the situation may seem like 300 million against six, in the end, it's the six who count.
-- Tom Dennis for the Herald
