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
COYNE, Justice
(dissenting).
I join in the dissents of Chief Justice Amdahl and Justice Simonett.