Deadlocked Juries and the Allen Charge

Juries in cases requiring a unanimous verdict have three alternatives: a guilty verdict, a not guilty verdict, or no verdict for lack of unanimity. Deadlocked juries have long created a problem for efficient judicial administration. Early common law judges carried hung jurors around in oxcarts until a verdict "bounced out." More recent methods of forcing jurors to reach verdicts have included requiring them to deliberate all night and threatening to deprive them of water and heat. A more subtle method of encouraging jurors to reach verdicts is a trial judge's supplemental instruction to deadlocked jurors. A verdict-urging instruction is commonly referred to as an "Allen charge." Federal and state courts have upheld the Allen charge in cases involving wide variations in language and surrounding circumstances. Although such charges have been upheld, it is an established principle of the law that a trial judge may not coerce jurors into reaching a verdict. An instruction is coercive if it causes jurors to change their votes without changing their conscientious convictions. Recently, the coerciveness of the Allen charge has been severely criticized by the American Bar Association, which has adopted its own standard, and by many federal and state courts, some of which have abandoned the charge.In 1972 in State v. White, Maine's Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, rejected the use of the Allen charge or "any modified version thereof," and adopted the American Bar Association's (ABA) standard as the recommended practice. Nine years later in State v. Mahaney, the Law Court upheld an instruction that deviated from the ABA standard and included Allen charge variations, reasoning that there was no coercion in fact. These cases create confusion as to whether Allen charge variations are proper and raise questions as to the standard of review for verdict-urging instructions on appeal. This Note argues that the abandonment of the Allen charge and the adoption of the ABA standard in White are appropriate. Maine's trial courts should not deviate from the ABA instruction which balances the importance of reevaluating one's position with the importance of holding onto one's honest convictions. When trial courts deviate from the ABA standard, the Law Court should determine whether the language of the instruction maintains this balance without inquiring whether the instruction is coercive in fact.