During a trial when the jury deliberates, why aren't the deliberations taped? Since the judge can (upon request) conduct a polling of the jury, the juror's votes are not secret votes. It would make sense then to tape the deliberations, and allow cases to be retried if it can be demonstrated in an appeal that the jurors made their decisions based on factors other then the evidence and arguments presented (say, the desire to complete their jury duty, intimidation by another juror/other jurors, etc.). The cost of this would be increased size and complexity of the judicial branch, more expensive hearings, and longer total case times. But considering that a man was just executed in Georgia after more than half of his convicting witnesses recanted, while a women in Florida was acquitted of child neglect after failing to report her child's disappearance for over a month, it would be well worth it. Can someone provide a good reason why this isn't (or examples of places where it is/has been) done?
Hmm...The primary argument against it so far is the privacy of the jurors and their expressed opinions. My question then is: What opinion could a juror express that could be damaging to their verdict when revealed to an appellate court (not released publicly) yet would also not demonstrate that the juror wasn't making decisions based on evidence (this is the key point, decisions based on evidence). As for Troy Davis, the fact 7 of 9 witnesses in his trial recanted remains a fact, one commenter says that "Troy Davis was proven guilty as stated by the jurors who heard ALL the facts of the case." Yes, the jurors convicted him, yes, they heard all the "facts" (actually evidence and interpretations of both sides, not untrue, yet not definitively factual), did they convict him based on the evidence? ERROR: No valid data. There deliberation was in no way recorded, we don't know what the jurors convicted him on. The same points are true of the 280 people exonerated