Ian’s Legal Fact of the Week 9/7/15: Jury Sequestration in the U.S.

The practice of jury sequestration predates the Declaration of Independence, as its first recorded use in the U.S. was in the 1770 Boston Massacre trial in which the jury was sequestered for a week. The longest recorded sequestration was eight and a half months, in the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial, resulting in a mere three hours’ deliberation before the jury acquitted. Currently, only about .06% of federal and state trials result in sequestration, prompted either by concerns with security or to insulate jurors from news coverage.

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