Opinion ID: 1436943
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Origin and History of Allen Charge Recent Criticism.

Text: The Allen charge, often called the dynamite charge is a supplemental instruction given to encourage deadlocked juries to reach agreement. The first reported case of such an instruction was in an 1851 Massachusetts case. [6] In 1896 an almost identical charge was approved by the Supreme Court of the United States in Allen v. United States. [7] The central idea of the instruction is that although no juror is expected to yield a conscientiously held opinion, the jury has a duty to decide the case if it can conscientiously do so and that if a majority of the jury is for either conviction or acquittal, the minority ought to consider whether a contrary view may be reasonable and correct. [8] In recent years the Allen charge has been the subject of considerable discussion, including increasing criticism upon the ground that it is improperly coercive. [9] In order to evaluate the use of the Allen charge, or of any supplemental instructions to deadlocked juries, it is necessary to bear in mind the many variations of the Allen charge, as well as the fact that the extent to which such an instruction may be coercive depends largely upon the factual context or setting in which the charge is given in a particular case.