Judicial coercion of juries ended only after the Penn verdict backlash

Evidence

It was also not uncommon in England for judges or political authorities to pressure a jury to reach the verdict they desired. A particularly egregious example occurred in 1670 in the trial of William Penn for unlawful assembly and breach of the peace. When the jurors found Penn not guilty of the charges, the judge refused to accept their verdict and sent them back to deliberate some more. After two-and-ahalf days of deliberation without food, water, or chamber pot, the jury still would not convict Penn, so the angry judge fined each of the jurors and kept them in jail until they could pay their fines. This outrageous conduct produced a backlash and effectively ended the practice of coereing juries to reach “correct” verdicts. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1406

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the course’s theme of judicial independence and the historical origins of jury autonomy.
• CANDY: The no-food-no-chamber-pot-victory story is a vivid, tellable courtroom tidbit.