Sumnar Robert Brewster v. Gary Hetzel

ED CARNES, Chief Judge:

In olden days a number of methods were used to ensure that juries reached a unanimous verdict. From the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries, one "method of accelerating unanimity" was to prohibit jurors from eating or drinking until they all agreed on a verdict. 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries *375. And if jurors did not unanimously agree on one before the judges left town, Blackstone recounted, "the judges are not bound to wait for them, but may carry them round the circuit from town to town in a cart." Id. at *376. They were hauled around in the cart "until a…