holding that the Minnesota Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant’s right to a 12-person jury in misdemeanor prosecutions and, adopting the Supreme Court’s clear break exception, applying rule prospectively
How later courts described this case
- holding that the Minnesota Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant’s right to a 12-person jury in misdemeanor prosecutions and, adopting the Supreme Court’s clear break exception, applying rule prospectively
- refusing to allow constitution to be amended by statute and declaring statute permitting a six-person jury in misdemeanor cases unconstitutional where supreme court in 1869 interpreted the word "jury" in the Minnesota Constitution as meaning "a body of twelve persons"
- noting the key components of the right to a jury trial are “number, impartiality, and unanimity”
- adopting the retroactivity *496 criteria set forth in Linkletter and Stovall
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
POPOVICH, Justice
(concurring specialty)-
I concur in both the opinion of Justice Yetka and the special concurring opinion of Justice Kelley. Minn.Stat. § 593.01, subd. 1, is clearly unconstitutional under the reasoning of either opinion. A jury of less than 12 under Minnesota’s constitution and the case law cited can only be accomplished by a favorable vote of the electorate on an appropriate constitutional amendment.