Subject Index Juries

On May 31, 2024, the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court held the state’s use of peremptory challenges to exclude five black prospective jurors during jury selection violated the federal and Illinois constitutions’ respective equal-protection clause.

On Oct. 27, 2023, the Third District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that a conviction must be reversed if a jury was unable to differentiate between multiple counts, making it impossible to know if a conviction on any one of those counts was unanimous.

On Oct. 19, 2023, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a judgment notwithstanding the verdict is proper when a jury’s answer to a special interrogatory is inconsistent with its general verdict.

On June 13, 2023, the Fourth District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that a personal injury verdict was invalid because the jury was dismissed after reaching an internally inconsistent verdict, reassembled, and then reached a second verdict that was legally inconsistent with the first.

On March 31, 2023, the Second District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that guilty verdicts on charges of manslaughter and child endangerment were legally inconsistent because the offenses respectively required reckless and knowing conduct.

On Feb. 17, 2023, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a trial court did not abuse its discretion when it declined a defendant’s proposed jury instruction that was not an accurate statement of the law.

On Nov. 14, the Fifth District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that substituting a juror after deliberations already started was plain error.

On Oct. 26, 2022, the Second District of the Illinois Appellate Court held it was plain error to deny a motion for a mistrial after a jury received the Prim instruction and then indicated it could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Fane was convicted of several offenses, including residential burglary, home invasion, and resisting or obstructing a peace officer. On Nov. 18, 2016, police pursued two separate individuals, McGee and Beales, following a 911 report of a home invasion.

On Sept. 27, 2021, the Second District of the Illinois Appellate Court found that a trial court failed to conduct a proper Batson hearing.

On June 8, 2021, the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court reversed the trial court’s dismissal of Valen Little’s pro se postconviction petition. The First District found that Little made an arguable claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to challenge the state’s exclusion of a Black venire person from the jury.

On May 18, 2021, the Third District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that the trial court did not interfere with jury deliberation when it instructed the jury to remain silent while listening to an audio recording and prevented the jury from controlling the playback of the audio recording.

On Dec. 21, 2020, the Fifth District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that a dying declaration does not violate the Sixth Amendment and that a juror’s familial and professional relationship with a victim’s family does not necessarily constitute bias.

On Sept. 4, 2020, the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court held that a new trial is required when jurors are exposed to outside information that may have prejudiced them.

On July 13, 2020, the First District of the Illinois Appellate Court found that a rational jury could conclude that a defendant’s act of kicking a police officer supports a conviction for obstructing a peace officer instead of aggravated battery.

The defendant was convicted at a jury trial for possession of a weapon by a felon, forgery, and aggravated fleeing and eluding.

On Jan. 31, 2020, the Third District Appellate Court reversed a trial court decision that failed to provide adequate self-defense and second-degree murder instructions to the jury.

On Dec. 18, 2019, the Third District Appellate Court found that the trial court had not abused its discretion when it dismissed a juror who slept through portions of a first-degree murder proceeding and ignored photographic evidence.

On July 23, 2019, the Third District Appellate Court reversed and remanded a defendant’s conviction, holding that a clear or obvious error occurred when the lower court required the jury to view and listen to video and audio recordings of the arrest in the courtroom in the presence of the parties, their attorneys, and the trial judge, as the presence of these third parties chilled jury deliberations.

On July 11, 2019, the Fifth District Appellate Court held that 1) a lower court judge had not erred in failing to remove, sua sponte, a potential juror for cause who stated that she knew a police officer who appeared in a video interview but who was not a witness; 2) the defense counsel was not liable for ineffective assistance for failing to challenge the inclusion of the potential juror, where the defendant received a fair trial and there was no reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s failure to challenge the potential juror, the outcome of the trial would have been different; and 3) no error existed when: the jury watched the video interview in the presence of two neutral nonjurors (a clerk and a bailiff), the jury started to watch the video before the judge decided what they would be permitted to see, or when one juror went to use the restroom at the time the video began.

On July 11, 2019, the Third District Appellate Court held that removal of the only African-American juror from the trial of an African-American defendant did not deprive the defendant of equal protection or due process.

Defendant was convicted for resisting a peace officer and sentenced to two years' imprisonment following a jury trial.

The Code of Civil Procedure has been amended to restrict the number of jurors a party can demand in a civil jury trial.