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Editor: Colin Miller

9th Circuit Reverses Conviction Based on Judge Telling Holdout Juror to Surrender His Opinion Regarding Expert’s “Irrelevant” Testimony on Defendant’s Autism

The Supreme Court has held that a criminal defendant “being tried by a jury is entitled to the uncoerced verdict of that body.” Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231, 241 (1988). It’s rare for an appellate court to find that a trial judge coerced a verdict out of a juror, but a good example can be found in the recent case, United States v. Chapman, 175 F.4th 1118 (9th Cir. 2026).

In Chapman…

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