Can somebody explain how is this a good thing? Whenever nobody in a group has a different opinion on a serious subject that always seems extremely suspicious to me. Communist commissions used to vote this way traditionally.
With a criminal conviction we're talking about exercising the state's monopoly on violence and coercing an individual to give up their liberty and freedom.
There shouldn't be a differing opinion on guilt. If there is, the state hasn't proven the subject's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If there is reasonable doubt, the person should be found not guilty.
It was a young man being charged with a list of crimes, the most serious being negligent homicide. I went into it thinking "oh boy, this kid must be guilty" and by the end, I wished we had the ability to convict the prosecutor of negligence. The kid did nothing wrong.
But the initial vote was 11 to 1 not guilty. The one guilty was a retired guy, and to this day I believe he was just relishing having something to do because he kept us there for an extra day trying to convince him that the kid wasn't guilty. He didn't even have a good reason for the guilty vote either, which was the worst part. Eventually he relented and the kid went free.
The moral of my story is, having a different opinion isn't necessarily a good or useful thing on a jury.