"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." That comes from Blackstone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio http

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." That comes from Blackstone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio), and has been a bedrock principle of justice in English, English inspired justice systems, including the US. Historically unanimous juries were required in criminal trials through the English speaking world, and that's still true in the US, Canada, and NZ at least. For a period of time criminal trials at a state level could have majority verdicts in Louisiana and Oregon, but a recent Supreme Court case (Ramos v. Louisiana) declared this unconstituional, and federal cases (as here) always required unanimous verdicts. Somewhat oddly the UK has allowed majority verdicts in some criminal trials since 1967 (although I believe they're generally rare and somewhat controvesial), as does Australia. But they're very much the outliers. > Unanimous seems pretty risky. Generally speaking, allowing a pure majority has been seen as the risky option, given the stakes. (Much the same logic applies to the standard of proof required, which is "beyond reasonable doubt", otherwise phrased as there being no plausible reason to believe the accused might not be guilty. Obviously it would be much easier to achieve a guilty verdict if the standard was "preponderance of the evidence", but the goal of the system is justice, not guilty verdicts.) Some history here: https://corkerbinning.com/jury-unanimity-uk-us-verdict/ https://corkerbinning.com/jury-unanimity-uk-us-verdict/