The following may delay and/or reduce a refund: A tax return that has errors A taxpayer and/or spouse, if filing a joint return, who has any outstanding unpaid assessments,
Overall, for all areas of the law, federal civil trials have declined 60 percent since the mid-1980s. In 2002, less than 2 percent of those cases ended in a trial â down from 12 percent in 1962 and 20 percent in the 1920s. Less than 5 percent of criminal cases go to trial; most result in plea bargains.
The US Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to take up a case examining whether the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial requires that juries in criminal cases reach their verdicts unanimously. Two states, Louisiana and Oregon, permit convictions on less-than-unanimous jury verdicts. In both states a defendant can be convicted by an 11-to-1 or 10-to-2 vote. All other states and the federal government require that jurors reach a verdict unanimously. Lawyers urging the high court to take up their case alleged that the jury process in Louisiana is a vestige of a Jim Crow-era policy that sought to undermine African-American participation in the criminal-justice system.