No rule sets a maximum on how long a jury can deliberate before a hung jury is declared. The length of deliberations in a criminal trial is left to the trial judge’s discretion, and the judge calls a hung jury only after concluding that the jurors genuinely cannot agree and that more time would not change that. Real deliberations have run from six minutes to roughly four months.
Why There Is No Fixed Deadline
A clock running down on a jury would pressure jurors to abandon honestly held positions just to finish, which is the kind of coercion the system is built to prevent. Complex evidence and genuine disagreement take unpredictable amounts of time to work through, so the law gives judges flexibility instead of a cutoff.
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 31 addresses how verdicts are returned and what happens when a jury cannot agree, but it imposes no time limits on reaching that point.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 31 – Jury Verdict A verdict reached through genuine deliberation carries more legitimacy than one produced under an artificial deadline, and the silence in the rules is intentional.
How Long Deliberations Actually Run
Deliberation length varies enormously. A simple case with one charge and clear evidence can wrap up in a few hours. A multi-defendant case involving financial fraud or civil rights allegations can stretch for weeks or longer. A handful of real examples show the range:
- Six minutes: a Connecticut jury convicted a defendant on all four counts in a double-murder trial.
- Four hours: the O.J. Simpson jury reached a not-guilty verdict.
- 27 hours: the Kyle Rittenhouse jury deliberated across multiple days before acquitting on all charges.
- More than 50 hours: jurors in the Elizabeth Holmes fraud trial deliberated for over a week, convicting on some counts and deadlocking on others.
- About four months: in a 2003 Oakland civil rights case against three police officers, the jury deliberated for roughly four months before acquitting on some charges and deadlocking on the rest.
A few things push deliberations longer. Intricate financial records or dueling expert witnesses demand more discussion. Multiple charges force jurors to work through each one separately. And when a defendant faces decades in prison, jurors tend to take more time weighing the evidence before committing.
What Has to Happen Before a Judge Declares a Hung Jury
In a criminal case, the Sixth Amendment requires a unanimous verdict to convict. The Supreme Court confirmed in 2020 that this applies in every state, striking down the last laws that had allowed non-unanimous convictions.2Supreme Court of the United States. Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83 (2020) A single juror who will not budge can prevent a guilty verdict, and that is what sets the stage for a possible hung jury.
When jurors send a note saying they cannot agree, the judge does not immediately declare a mistrial. The judge first assesses whether more deliberation might help. One thing the judge cannot do in federal court is ask how the jury is split numerically. The Supreme Court held in 1926 that inquiring into the numerical division is inherently coercive and grounds for reversal, because it inevitably pressures whoever is in the minority.3Library of Congress. Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448 (1926)
The Allen Charge
If the judge thinks a verdict is still possible, the judge can deliver a supplemental instruction known as an Allen charge, named for the 1896 Supreme Court case that approved it.4Justia. Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492 (1896) The instruction urges jurors to listen to one another, reexamine their own views, and consider whether a position held by a large majority of their peers deserves weight. It also tells them not to surrender an honest belief about the evidence just to reach a verdict.5United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Ninth Circuit Model Criminal Jury Instructions – 6.25 Deadlocked Jury
Defense attorneys sometimes call it the “dynamite charge” because it can feel aimed at blasting a holdout into submission. The Supreme Court later held that the question is whether the instruction, viewed in context, was impermissibly coercive.6Legal Information Institute. Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231 (1988) Modern versions are more carefully worded, and several states have banned the traditional Allen charge entirely in favor of softer alternatives.
Only after one or more supplemental instructions, and only when the jury still reports no movement, does the judge typically declare the deadlock final. There is no formula. The judge weighs how long deliberations have run relative to the length and complexity of the trial, whether the jury’s notes show genuine engagement or entrenched positions, and whether any further tools might help. When none of that looks promising, the judge declares a mistrial.
Partial Verdicts Are Possible
A jury does not have to be stuck on everything. In a trial with multiple charges or multiple defendants, the jury can return a verdict on the counts where it agrees and report a deadlock on the rest. Rule 31 specifically permits this: if the jury cannot agree on all counts, it may deliver a verdict on the ones where it has reached unanimity.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 31 – Jury Verdict The judge then declares a mistrial on only the hung counts, and the completed verdicts stand. The Holmes case worked exactly this way, with convictions on four counts and a deadlock on the rest.
What a Hung Jury Means for the Case
A hung jury produces a mistrial, not a verdict. The defendant is neither convicted nor acquitted, which matters enormously: an acquittal would end the case for good, while a mistrial leaves the door open.7Fully Informed Jury Association. What Happens If There Is a Hung Jury
The double jeopardy clause generally does not prevent the government from trying the case again. The Supreme Court settled that in 1824, holding that discharging a jury that cannot agree is not a bar to a future trial because the defendant has been neither convicted nor acquitted.8Justia. United States v. Perez, 22 U.S. 579 (1824) A narrow exception applies if a mistrial resulted from prosecutorial misconduct deliberately intended to provoke the defendant into asking for one. The Court set that standard in 1982, and only intentional goading qualifies.9Justia. Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667 (1982) In practice the exception is extremely hard to prove.
Retrial is not automatic either. A study of 453 hung jury cases found that only about a third were retried before a new jury. Roughly another third were resolved through plea agreements, and about one in five were dismissed outright. Prosecutors weigh the strength of the evidence, the cost of a second trial, and what the jury’s split suggests. A case where eleven jurors favored conviction looks very different from one where the vote was closer to even, and the closer the split, the more likely the charges end in a plea or a dismissal.