Definition
The formal decision rendered by a jury upon the factual questions submitted to it during trial. A verdict is the jury's authoritative answer to the issues of fact in dispute — delivered after hearing evidence, receiving instructions from the court, and deliberating — and reported to the court as the basis for judgment.
Three features are definitionally essential: (1) the decision must come from the jury, not the court or any other officer; (2) it must resolve questions of fact, not questions of law; and (3) it must be delivered in the form and manner the court requires. Historical sources are emphatic that a verdict is never the decision of a court, referee, or commissioner. Where a judge decides a case without a jury, the result is a finding or judgment, not a verdict.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "A decision on an issue of fact in a civil or criminal case or an inquest; an opinion or judgment."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The answer of a jury given to the court concerning any matter of fact in any cause, civil or criminal, committed to their examination and determination; also, more broadly, a decision, judgment, or opinion pronounced."
Webster's 1913 reflects the dual usage accurately: legal sense (jury finding) and common sense (any decisive judgment). In ordinary speech, "verdict" extends freely to non-legal contexts — a critic delivers a "verdict" on a film, the public renders a "verdict" on a politician. The legal meaning is narrower and stricter: only a jury can return a verdict in the technical sense. A researcher encountering "verdict" in historical documents should not assume jury involvement merely because the word appears; loose common usage was and remains widespread.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
General verdict: The jury finds entirely for one party — plaintiff or defendant in a civil case, guilty or not guilty in a criminal case — without specifying the factual basis for its conclusion. This is the default and most common form. Bouvier notes that in a general verdict the jury pronounces simultaneously on fact and law.
Special verdict: The jury returns findings on specific questions of fact, leaving the court to apply the law and enter judgment accordingly. Where a general verdict gives a result, a special verdict gives the raw factual material from which the result follows.
General verdict with interrogatories: A hybrid form in which the jury returns a general verdict but also answers specific written questions. If the answers are inconsistent with the general verdict, the interrogatory answers control in many jurisdictions.
Partial verdict: In multi-count criminal cases, the jury finds the defendant guilty on some counts and not guilty on others, or reaches a verdict on fewer than all counts submitted.
Directed verdict: Historically, a verdict entered by the jury on the court's instruction when the evidence permits only one legal outcome. In modern federal practice, this mechanism has been replaced by judgment as a matter of law, but the term persists in state courts and older sources.
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Why It Matters in Research
Unanimity assumption in historical sources: Every historical dictionary in the Law Mind corpus — Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, Burrill's — defines verdict as requiring unanimity. This reflects the common-law rule. Modern law has changed this in civil cases in many jurisdictions, and some states now permit non-unanimous verdicts in certain criminal proceedings following constitutional developments. A researcher reading historical sources should not assume unanimity remains a universal requirement today.
Verdict versus judgment: These terms are frequently conflated in non-legal and even semi-legal historical writing. The verdict is the jury's act; the judgment is the court's act that follows from it. Bouvier's notes explicitly that a judgment must "follow and conform to the verdict." Conflation in historical sources can obscure whether a contested outcome was a factual determination by a jury or a legal ruling by the court — a distinction that matters enormously for understanding the procedural posture of historical cases.
Criminal versus civil research: The practical weight of the verdict concept differs significantly by context. In criminal research, the not-guilty verdict carries constitutional finality (double jeopardy attaches). In civil research, verdicts are more routinely disturbed post-trial through renewed motions for judgment as a matter of law, remittitur, or additur. Sources that discuss the "finality" of a verdict should be read with this distinction in mind.
Directed verdict terminology: Pre-1970s federal materials and many state court materials use "directed verdict" where modern federal materials say "judgment as a matter of law." When researching across eras, treat these as functionally equivalent while noting the procedural context.
Corpus connections: The jury instruction process and the form of verdict submissions are directly linked; the Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia entry on Closing Arguments, Jury Instructions, and Verdict addresses how jury instructions shape which verdict forms are available and what the jury is actually deciding.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the core definition — a jury's determination of fact — but vary in emphasis and in what they flag as significant.
Burrill's is the most thorough on meaning and derivation, glossing the term as "literally, a saying or declaration of the truth" and emphasizing that a verdict is the jury's opinion "as to the truth of matters of fact submitted to them." Burrill's framing of verdict as an epistemic act — a declaration of what is true — captures something the more procedurally focused definitions in Black's miss.
Black's (both editions) is emphatic on what verdict excludes: the decision of a court, a referee, or a commissioner is never a verdict. This exclusion is stated in nearly identical terms in both editions, suggesting it addressed a real confusion practitioners encountered. Black's 1st edition also includes the notable phrase "the honest accord of twelve intelligent minds" — a rhetorical formulation that reflects the idealization of the jury system in that era rather than a legal standard.
Bouvier's provides the most useful structural account, distinguishing general from special verdicts and connecting verdict to the subsequent judgment. Bouvier's note that judgment must conform to verdict is a practical research anchor for understanding post-verdict motion practice.
The Rapalje & Lawrence and Anderson's entries produced by the source corpus are not directly on point for this term — the excerpts provided address adjacent concepts (judgment, words of pleading) rather than verdict itself. Researchers should treat those sources as secondary for this entry.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: post-verdict motions (judgment notwithstanding the verdict, remittitur), non-unanimous verdict rules in modern civil practice, and the constitutional doctrine governing criminal verdict finality. These gaps are expected given publication dates and should be filled with modern primary sources.
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Jurisdictional Note
The unanimity requirement for criminal verdicts varies by state, and the U.S. Supreme Court has addressed its federal constitutional dimensions in the modern era. In civil cases, most jurisdictions permit non-unanimous verdicts by statute or court rule. The availability and form of special verdict and general-verdict-with-interrogatories procedures also varies: federal courts permit both under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but state practice differs significantly.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Closing Arguments, Jury Instructions, and Verdict — The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia
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