So I gave it a thought. Suppose you have 12 jurors with
unanimity but for
two contrarians. If one juror drops
randomly, the odds are only 1 in 12 it will
be a contrarian.
Imagine it happens against the odds, and 11 jurors
remain,
one of them being a contrarian. Now the odds are 1
in 11 that one would fall
out the next time a juror drops
out randomly. So then what's the odds that we
lost 2
contrarians? I think you multiply 11 x 12 (but I'm no
mathematician) so
the odds that we lost two contrarians
would be 1 in 132.
So then with a
great leap of logic we could say as more
jurors drop out, it becomes more and
more likely the
remainder have a higher percentage of contrarians, and they
are therefore less likely to come into agreement.
On the other hand,
losing a juror randomly out of the
group who share the majority opinion the
first time are 11
out of 12, then 10 out of 11. In total, the odds of losing
two of this group are 1 in 1.2
However, I would suggest jurors don't
drop out randomly.
They must all have difficulties at times, but the more
motivated ones manage to continue. Perhaps the contrarians
are among the more
motivated. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
| 
