Mayfield v. State

A jury must be “free to act and free from any seeming or real coercion on the part of the [trial] court.”5 “Each juror has the right to form his own conviction. He is not required to surrender it because he is in the minority. He is not required to agree with the majority rather than cause a mistrial.”6 A trial court should take steps to avoid suggesting (either explicitly or implicitly) to a jury that one or more of it members should surrender his or her beliefs, as under the law a juror has an unfettered right to hold fast to his convictions and is not required to surrender them simply…