Jury convicts on Manslaughter.

Hangs on punishment.

What happens?

Do you retry punishment only with a new jury?

New trial on everything. Sorry.

Hey, Shannon, here is another legal fix we could pursue (as we have done before without success). Trial court can't order retrial on punishment only (even after motion for new trial) but an appellate court can. This is only because of the wording of the CCP.

Every time we have tried to change it, the deeefense types in the Capitol say no. No good reason other than giving up an unfair advantage taken by the defendant.

Can you point me at the authority for that? 36.31 simply is ambiguous. Which I'm sure is the problem John B. is referring to. I tried boolean searches for bifurcated, hung jury, punishment, retrial, and conviction, but I end up with cases on hung juries during the first phase.

I really appreciate it.

Try Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 37.07, sec.3 (c).

I'm with you, JB. Ed Klein in Nacogdoches got his state senator to file such a bill last session, but it never got out of the blocks.

SB 432 (78th R.S.)

Since Ed has moved on to a local bench, maybe someone new is willing to take up the standard and press forward with the charge ...

This is really a statute that makes no sense. Every prosecutor has a story about a jury that stayed out a long time on punishment, which caused great pain and anguish over the prospect of retrying the entire case. However, as we all know the legislature responds to horror stories generated by bad results. Has anyone had to retry a case from scratch due to a hung jury on punishment? My experience has been that juries will eventually reach a result when they appear to be haggling over punishment; sometimes not the one we wanted but, nevertheless, a result. Can we point to an injustice done in some case, or are we left with generally "taint fair"?