Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Hard

PT113 S1 P1 Q3 Explanation

Jury Unanimity

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsPrincipleLaw

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Passage

The jury trial is one of the handful of democratic institutions that allow individual citizens, rather than the government, to make important societal decisions. A crucial component of the jury trial, at least in serious criminal cases, is the rule that verdicts be unanimous among the jurors (usually twelve in number). Under so that one or even two dissenting jurors will not be able to force a retrial.

But the material costs of hung juries do not warrant losing the benefit to society of the unanimous verdict. Statistically, jury trials are relatively rare; the vast majority of defendants do not have the option of a jury trial or elect to have a trial without a jury—or they plead guilty to may sometimes lead to inconclusive outcomes, a hung jury is certainly preferable to an unjust verdict.

Requiring unanimity provides a better chance that a trial, and thus a verdict, will be fair. Innocent people are already occasionally convicted—perhaps in some cases because jurors presume that anyone who has been brought to trial is probably guilty—and eliminating the unanimity requirement would only increase the opportunity for such mistakes. Furthermore, dismissed out of hand, society’s confidence that a proper verdict has been reached would be undermined.

What this question is testing

Principle

Anticipate

This is a Principle question, scoped to P3. The principle test: which broad rule, when applied, makes the author's P3 arguments make sense?

P3's arguments are all about preventing wrongful convictions. The author says: innocent people are already convicted sometimes, dropping unanimity would make that worse, dissenting jurors must be heard, and the verdict has to represent the whole jury. The unifying idea is that wrongful convictions are bad enough that we should accept some inconvenience (the unanimity requirement) to guard against them.

Goal

Look for an answer that says, in some form: the risk of unjust verdicts is serious enough to warrant strong measures. Common traps:

Principles about judges' thoroughness — but P3 is about jurors

Principles about irresponsible jurors — P3 doesn't blame jurors

Principles that say unanimity will eliminate unjust verdicts — too strong; the author says it reduces the risk

Principles that frame the system as inherently flawed — the author isn't conceding that

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
3.

Which one of the following principles can most clearly be said to underlie the author’s arguments in

Answer choices

  1. Correct68% picked this

    The risk of unjust verdicts is serious enough to warrant strong measures

    Why this is right

    This is the principle that fits P3. The author argues unanimity should be kept because innocent people are already occasionally convicted, dropping the requirement would worsen that, and a verdict that represents the whole jury preserves confidence. The unifying principle: the risk of unjust verdicts is serious enough to justify strong protective measures (here, the unanimity requirement).

    Skill tested: Principle · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  2. Wrong Emphasis5% picked this

    Fairness in jury trials is crucial and so judges must be extremely thorough in order

    P3 is about jurors — their dissent, their deliberation, the unanimity requirement — not about judges. The principle here doesn't fit because P3 doesn't hinge on judicial thoroughness. The author argues the protection comes from the structural rule (unanimity), not from judges being careful.

  3. Too Strong13% picked this

    Careful adherence to the unanimity requirement will eventually eliminate

    The author argues unanimity reduces the risk of unjust verdicts — not that it will eliminate them. P3 even acknowledges that innocent people "are already occasionally convicted," and the argument is to keep unanimity so the problem doesn't get worse. "Eventually eliminate" overshoots.

  4. Out of Scope5% picked this

    Safeguards must be in place because not all citizens called to jury duty perform

    P3 doesn't blame irresponsible citizens for the need for safeguards. The protection logic isn't "some jurors are bad, so we need protection from them" — it's "wrongful convictions are too costly, so we need a high bar to convict." Irresponsibility isn't the basis of the argument.

  5. Wrong View10% picked this

    The jury system is inherently flawed and therefore unfairness cannot be eliminated

    The author is defending the jury system, not conceding it's inherently flawed. P3's arguments treat unanimity as a positive feature that protects fairness and confidence — not as a damage-control measure for an inherently broken system.

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