What does petit jury mean

First Known Use of petit jury 15th century, in the meaning defined above. Learn More About petit jury. Time Traveler for petit jury The first known use of petit jury was in the 15th century See more words from the same century.

Statistics for petit jury Look-up Popularity. Style: MLA. Legal Definition of petit jury. More from Merriam-Webster on petit jury Britannica.

Get Word of the Day daily email! Test Your Vocabulary. Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words? At this second trial, the jury cannot hold it against you if you were found guilty at the lower trial.

In North Carolina and the majority of other states that require unanimous jury verdicts, the petit jury hears the evidence against a defendant and does one of the three following things:. The prosecution can recharge and retry you for the same crime if they so wish. An Allen Charge reminds a jury of the financial and emotional costs that a trial has to both sides and encourages holdout jurors to vote with the majority to avoid a mistrial.

Defense advocates critical of the Allen Charge have pointed out that it is an overly persuasive tool for the prosecution used to strong-arm jurors into guilty verdicts in a system that is already slanted for the prosecution. There is no legal requirement on any jury to reach a verdict, and a hung jury does not mean that a group of jurors failed. On a petit jury, potential jurors can be excluded with and without cause. During the jury selection process, both the defense and prosecution are given a certain number of peremptory challenges that let them exclude a potential juror with no reason or explanation unless the opposing party can prove the challenge was used to discriminate on the basis of sex, race or ethnicity.

The jury selection process lets both the prosecution and defense exclude jurors that they think will be the most prejudicial to their side. In a jury trial, the accused has numerous rights they did not have at the grand jury, including the right to an attorney, the right to exculpatory evidence by the prosecution, the right to present evidence, and the right to hear the evidence being presented against you.

The grand jury decides whether or not to issue a formal charge, or indictment, against a person for felony charges. Prosecutors have immense power in the grand jury setting and are the only side allowed to present evidence. A grand jury will be between 12 and 23 people, 12 of whom must agree to charge the suspect. Unlike in the petit jury where each side gets a certain number of peremptory challenges to exclude jurors without cause, an individual does not have the right to have an attorney present at the grand jury because this right does not attach until you are officially charged.

Some of the major differences between the petit jury and grand jury are below for easy reference. The grand jury indictment named 21 suspects as being involved in the U.

A grand jury investigated but found Foster had broken no law. Had he been competently represented, the jury might well have failed to concur on a death sentence. Widespread, popular protests began last week after the local grand jury decision. Brooklyn district attorney Ken Thompson explained his decision to impanel a grand jury in a statement released Friday.

Louis Petit de Bachaumon died; a native of Paris, known as the author of several literary works.