History Main / NotablyQuickDeliberation

* In ''Brawl of the Wild'', the sixth ''ComicBook/DogMan'' book, Chief tells Dog Man that his trial is in five minutes, and promises him that everything will be fine. Exactly five minutes later, [[TemptingFate the judge declares the dog-headed cop guilty.]]

* In the first issue of the Dan Slott ''ComicBook/SheHulk'' series, Shulkie manages to break the record for the fastest jury deliberation in history, which is initially taken as a sign of her skills as a prosecutor. Unfortunately, the defendants convince the judge to declare a mistrial because She-Hulk saved the world on the day before the verdict came down, which they argued might have unduly influenced the jury.
** FridgeLogic suggests that if this is valid reason for a mistrial (since She Hulk has helped saved the world and therefore everyone on it numerous times) then she realistically can't function as a lawyer.

* In ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird'' the jury on Tom Robinson's trial comes back with a verdict very quickly. Because they're all bigoted, white, Southern men in a setting before The Civil Rights Movement, they found the black man on trial guilty almost immediately, despite having lots of facts presented to them that indicated he wasn't. But of course, they take almost no time to consider them.
** Despite the quick turnaround, this is actually a subversion. It takes a couple hours of deliberation to find Tom guilty and while the reader is supposed to see this as unusually short for a rape trial with so much disproved evidence, the crowd in the court believes this is an unusually long time to return a deliberation, especially a guilty verdict and it is [[HopeSpot outright stated that there was at least one]] RogueJuror [[HopeSpot in the room, who, given his personality, most likely had to be threatened into compliance.]]
* In the children's book ''Mystery in the Night Woods'' Flying Squirrel is on trial for kidnapping Miss Owl. The jurors literally don't leave the courtroom, or even ''talk to each other'', before rendering their decision.

(''he looks at the other animals; they nod'')
* A footnote in one of A P Herbert's ''Literature/MisleadingCasesInTheCommonLaw'':
--> In Rex v Strauss (1928) 9 Cr App R 91, a bailiff acting for the Inland Revenue was struck and killed with a book of sermons while removing, from the premises of the accused, a wireless set belonging to the accused; as well as two Rabbits, the property of a favourite daughter. The defence was that distress for income tax was a gross provocation comparable to the discovery of a wife in the arms of another (see Rex v Mouldy, 1 Ventris 158), and such as to produce an uncontrollable impulse depriving a man of the ordinary powers of self-control. The jury, without leaving the box, returned a verdict of 'Justifiable Homicide'; but the following day was Derby Day, and therefore the decision is not regarded as settled law.
* In the ''Literature/DiamondBrothers'' book ''Public Enemy Number Two'', Nick is framed for robbery, then in the process of trying to escape from the scene of the frame-up manages to add assault, trespass, criminal damage and [[ItMakesSenseInContext cruelty to animals]] to his rap sheet, then in the ensuing trial Tim, as the witness for the defence, manages only to repeatedly implicate him. The jury takes exactly forty-five seconds to reach a guilty verdict.

* Subverted in the '80s [=BBC=] adaptation of Creator/DorothyLSayers' Literature/LordPeterWimsey novel, ''Strong Poison''. Two reporters awaiting the verdict in Harriet Vane's murder trial expect the jurors to return quickly:

'''Young Reporter:''' Let's go.
::Some hours pass, and eventually the jury foreman must report that they cannot reach a verdict.
* In ''Series/TheGeorgeLopezShow'' episode "George Testi-Lies for Benny", when Benny is on trial for a crime she committed 30 years ago, the jury already reached a verdict before they made it to the jury room and they find Benny guilty.
* ''Series/TheFlash2014'': Barry mentions in the third episode that (because the evidence wouldn't make sense otherwise, understandably because it was impossible to believe that [[spoiler:a speedster from the future]] could have done it) the case to convict Dr. Henry Allen for the murder of his wife was so ironclad that it only took the jury 52 minutes to declare him guilty.
* ''Series/Batman1966'': One episode ends with the Joker and Catwoman being tried. Their lawyer doesn't cross-examine any witnesses brought by the prosecution and doesn't try to introduce any evidence that could help his clients so it's not much of a surprise the jury's leader declares there's no need to step out of the court to deliberate. [[spoiler:The surprise is that they decide to acquit the defendants. When said juror's mustache starts falling, Batman figures out Catwoman and the Joker had their henchmen as the jury and they end up being arrested.]]
* ''Series/TokusouSentaiDekaranger'': Subverted. The Dekarangers' [[TransformationTrinket Licenses]] have a special mode that sends all known evidence and current bioreadings to "the highest court in the galaxy", getting a verdict back in eight seconds. The subversion comes from the "Ten Years Later" reunion special, which explains that the court handling the judgments is on a planet surrounded by a temporal distortion...so for every case, they've actually spent eight ''[[YearInsideHourOutside months]]'' deliberating.
* In ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' "Mean", the {{Beta Bitch}}es on trial for murder play the role of a GuiltRiddenAccomplice. This might have worked...until Novak pointed out that one of them was [[RobbingTheDead wearing their victim's ring]]. When Novak walks out of the courtroom and tells Benson and Stabler the verdict was guilty on all counts, Stabler checks his watch and notes that took ''fifteen minutes''.

* In the penultimate track of Music/PinkFloyd's "The Wall", the deliberation is skipped altogether.
--> '''Judge Worm:''' The evidence before the court is / Incontrovertible, There's no need for / The jury to retire.

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'': One Bretonnian noble is noted to have an expeditive method of resolving claims that come to his court: he hears what both parties have to say, then declares the one with the highest social rank to be in the right.

* In ''VisualNovel/DaughterForDessert'', [[spoiler:it barely takes any time at all for the jury to find the protagonist not guilty of breaking and entering. Justified, as all of the evidence against him was ruled as inadmissible during the trial.]]

* In ''WebComic/{{GPF}}'', Fooker's trial (comic date 3/16/2002) is extremely short. Judge: You were only gone 5 minutes! Juror: Oh, we decided yesterday. Juror 8 has a squash game.

** Spoofed in one episode. The jury dramatically walked into a room to deliberate and then immediately walked out the next door. And then declared the defendant guilty.
** Another episode has a Supreme Court case in which the justices decide "using high-speed telepathy" in a matter of moments.
* In ''WesternAnimation/RootyTootToot'', the jury rush into the deliberation room and spend all of half a second before rushing back in to deliver the verdict.
* In ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' "Fly Burgers", Flecko the fly tries to sue Rocko for almost "killing" him. During the trial, Flecko gave a sob story that made the judge and the jury ([[JokerJury who are bugs]]) angry at Rocko. When the judge told the jury to reach a verdict, they just go in and out a revolving door before finding him guilty.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Parodied in the episode "The Boy Who Saw Too Much", the jury of Freddy Quimby's trial was all set to vote "guilty" from the moment they walked out of the courtroom (Freddy Quimby was just ''that'' ObviouslyEvil), and the only reason Homer becomes a RogueJuror is that he wants to exploit the free hotel stay they would get if they are deadlocked.
* ''WesternAnimation/SuperFriends'' 1973-74 episode "The Menace of the White Dwarf". The supervillain Raven puts Superman on trial. At the end of the trial, the jurors find Superman guilty, without even leaving the jury box or deliberating. It's justified in this case, because the jury is made up of Raven's robots, who are programmed to find Superman guilty.
* In the WesternAnimation/{{Classic Disney Short|s}} "WesternAnimation/PlutosJudgementDay", Pluto has a nightmare where he is tried in Hell by devil cats for the crime of attacking cats (which Pluto did earlier in the cartoon and which, because of it, Mickey Mouse warns his dog that he will have a lot to answer for on judgment day). As shown in the page image, the jury literally goes in and out a revolving door before finding him guilty, and the jurors leave so quickly that the first to enter has come out before the rest have even gone in.

* Creator/AlFranken was sued by the Fox News Channel for his book ''Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right'' for using Fox News's motto: "Fair and Balanced". The judge heard both sides' arguments and told them he needed a moment to consider. He stepped out of the courtroom for two seconds before returning and saying, "Your (Fox's) claim is completely without merit, both legally and factually."

* Creator/AlFranken was sued by the Creator/FoxNewsChannel for his book ''Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right'' for using Fox News's motto: "Fair and Balanced". The judge heard both sides' arguments and told them he needed a moment to consider. He stepped out of the courtroom for two seconds before returning and saying, "Your (Fox's) claim is completely without merit, both legally and factually."

* In the first issue of the Dan Slott ''ComicBook/SheHulk'' series, Shulkie manages to break the record for the fastest jury deliberation in history, which is initially taken as a sign of her skills as a prosecutor. Unfortunately, the defendants convince the judge to declare a mistrial because She-Hulk saved the world on the day before the verdict came down, which they argued might have unduly influenced the jury.

* The OJ Simpson Murder trial was the longest trial in U.S. History, beginning on January 24, 1995, to October 3rd, 1995. The jury was sworn in on November 9th, 1994, so they were attached to it for the better part of a year. The decision was rendered in four hours on October 2nd, 1995, but the judge held it off for a day due to the sheer size of the trial. Some years thereafter, at least a couple of the jurors publicly came forward and admitted that it was exactly because of the very lengthy trial that they jumped to the verdict so quickly. At that point, they were simply utterly exhausted from being held up at the trial for nearly a year and just wanted to go home.

** Despite the quick turnaround, this is actually a subversion. It takes a couple hours of deliberation to find Tom guilty and while the reader is supposed to see this as unusually short for a rape trial with so much disproved evidence, the crowd in the court believe this is an unusually long time to return a deliberation, especially a guilty verdict and it is [[HopeSpot outright stated that there was at least one]] RogueJuror [[HopeSpot in the room, who, given his personality, most likely had to be threatened into compliance.]]

* In ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' "Mean", the {{Beta Bitch}}s on trial for murder play the role of a GuiltRiddenAccomplice. This might have worked...until Novak pointed out that one of them was [[RobbingTheDead wearing their victim's ring]]. When Novak walks out of the courtroom and tells Benson and Stabler the verdict was guilty on all counts, Stabler checks his watch and notes that took ''fifteen minutes''.

* A footnote in one of A P Herbert's ''Misleading Cases in the Common Law'':

Since jury trials include a great deal of information (opening arguments, the testimony of multiple witnesses, cross examinations, and so on), jury deliberations, which should review all this material as well as instructions from the judge, are expected to take considerable time. When a jury returns a verdict in half an hour or less, this trope is in effect.

* The jurors are biased, and letting their biases do the voting. This isn't supposed to happen (juror selection is meant to find an unbiased jury), but it does.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'', it's mentioned in passing that Marty's son was tried, convicted and sentenced within a mere two hours of his arrest. Doc Brown explains that the criminal justice system is much more efficient since the abolition of lawyers.

* In ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' "Fly Burgers", Flecko the fly tries to sue Rocko for almost "killing" him. During the trial, Flecko gave a sob story that made the judge and the jury (who are bugs) angry at Rocko. When the judge told the jury to reach a verdict, they just go in and out a revolving door before finding him guilty.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Parodied in the episode "The Boy Who Saw Too Much", the jury of Freddy Quimby's trial was all set to vote "guilty" from the moment they walked out of the courtroom (Freddy Quimby was just ''that'' ObviouslyEvil), and the only reason Homer becomes a RogueJuror is because he wants to exploit the free hotel stay they would get if they are deadlocked.

* The jury in Creator/FattyArbuckle's third manslaughter trial took ten minutes to acquit him, and issued an impassioned statement in Arbuckle's defense. Unfortunately for Arbuckle, it was too late to resurrect his career.

* The OJ Simpson Murder trial was the longest trial in U.S. History, beginning on January 24, 1995 to October 3rd, 1995. The jury was sworn in on November 9th, 1994, so they were attached to it for the better part of a year. The decision was rendered in four hours on October 2nd, 1995, but the judge held it off for a day due to the sheer size of the trial. Some years thereafter, at least a couple of the jurors publicly came forward and admitted that it was exactly because of the very lengthy trial that they jumped to the verdict so quickly. At that point, they were simply utterly exhausted from being held up at the trial for nearly a year and just wanted to go home.

* In the WesternAnimation/{{Classic Disney Short|s}} "WesternAnimation/PlutosJudgementDay", Pluto has a nightmare where he is tried in Hell by devil cats for the crime of attacking cats (which Pluto did earlier in the cartoon and which, because of it, Mickey Mouse warns his dog that he will have a lot to answer for on judgment day). As shown in the page image, the jury literally goes in and out a revolving door before finding him guilty, and the jurors leave so quickly that the first to enter has come out before the rest have even come in.

* ''WesternAnimation/SuperFriends'' 1973-74 episode "The Menace of the White Dwarf". The supervillain Raven puts Superman on trial. At the end of the trial the jurors find Superman guilty without even leaving the jury box or deliberating. It's justified in this case because the jury is made up of Raven's robots, who are programmed to find Superman guilty.
* In the WesternAnimation/{{Classic Disney Short|s}} "WesternAnimation/PlutosJudgementDay", Pluto has a nightmare where he is tried in hell by devil cats for the crime of attacking cats (which Pluto did earlier in the cartoon and which, because of it, Mickey Mouse warns his dog that he will have a lot to answer for on judgment day). As shown in the page image, the jury literally goes in and out a revolving door before finding him guilty, and the jurors leave so quickly that the first to enter come out before the rest have even come in.

[[folder:Web Comic]]
* In ''WebComic/{{GPF}}'' Fooker's trial (comic date 3/16/2002) is extremely short. Judge: You were only gone 5 minutes! Juror: Oh, we decided yesterday. Juror 8 has a squash game.

* In ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird'' the jury on Tom Robinson's trial comes back with a verdict very quickly. Because they're all bigoted white southern men in a setting before The Civil Rights Movement, they found the black man on trial guilty almost immediately, despite having lots of facts presented to them that indicated he wasn't. But of course, they take almost no time to consider them.
** Despite the quick turn around, this is actually a subversion. It takes a couple hours of deliberation to find Tom guilty and while the reader is supposed to see this as unusually short for a rape trial with so much disproved evidence, the crowd in the court believe this is an unusually long time to return a deliberation, especially a guilty verdict and it is [[HopeSpot implied that there was at least one]] RogueJuror [[HopeSpot in the room.]]

* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': In "Trial by Jury" (and its radio equivalent, "Reckless Driving"), Miss Brooks notes the jury made a quick decision, punishing her with "a rather stiff fine". Mr. Conklin, [[HollywoodLaw who was on the jury]], wanted to hurry out of court and go fishing.
* Subverted in the '80s [=BBC=] adaptation of Creator/DorothyLSayers' Literature/LordPeterWimsey novel ''Strong Poison''. Two reporters awaiting the verdict in Harriet Vane's murder trial expect the jurors to return quickly:

* ''Series/TokusouSentaiDekaranger'': Subverted. The Dekarangers' [[TransformationTrinket Licenses]] have a special mode that sends all known evidence and current bioreadings to "the highest court in the galaxy", getting a verdict back in eight seconds. The subversion comes from the "Ten Years Later" reunion special, which explains that the court handling the judgements is on a planet surrounded by a temporal distortion... so for every case, they've actually spent eight ''[[YearInsideHourOutside months]]'' deliberating.

--> '''Judge Worm:''' The evidence before the court is / Incontrovertible, there's no need for / The jury to retire.

* Narrowly averted in ''Film/TwelveAngryMen'' and the RogueJuror trope it inspired: if it wasn't for one guy, they'd have voted for conviction in about five minutes.

* ''Series/TheFlash2014'': Barry mentions on the third episode that (because the evidence wouldn't make sense otherwise, understandably because it was impossible to believe that [[spoiler:a speedster from the future]] could have done it) the case to convict Dr. Henry Allen for the murder of his wife was so iron-clad that it only took the jury 52 minutes to declare him guilty.

* [[http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/justice/florida-stand-ground-sentencing Marissa Alexander]] was convicted of aggravated assault and sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot in an effort to scare off her abusive husband. The jury reached its verdict after just 12 minutes of deliberation.

* The OJ Simpson Murder trial was the longest trial in U.S. History, beginning on January 24, 1995 to October 3rd, 1995. The jury was sworn in on November 9th, 1994, so they were attached to it for the better part of a year. The decision was rendered in four hours on October 2nd, 1995, but the judge held it off for a day due to the sheer size of the trial. Some years thereafter, at least a couple of the jurors publicly came forward and admitted that it was exactly because of the very lengthy trial that they jumped to the the verdict so quickly. At that point, they were simply utterly exhausted from being held up at the trial for nearly a year and just wanted to go home.

[[quoteright:350:[[Disney/PlutosJudgementDay https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/quick_deliberation.jpg]]]]

* In the WesternAnimation/{{Classic Disney Short|s}} ''Disney/PlutosJudgementDay'', Pluto has a nightmare where he is tried in hell by devil cats for the crime of attacking cats (which Pluto did earlier in the cartoon and which, because of it, Mickey Mouse warns his dog that he will have a lot to answer for on judgment day). As shown in the page image, the jury literally goes in and out a revolving door before finding him guilty, and the jurors leave so quickly that the first to enter come out before the rest have even come in.

* ''Series/{{Batman}}'': One episode ends with the Joker and Catwoman being tried. Their lawyer doesn't cross-examine any witnesses brought by the prosecution and doesn't try to introduce any evidence that could help his clients so it's not much of a surprise the jury's leader declares there's no need to step out of the court to deliberate. [[spoiler:The surprise is that they decide to acquit the defendants. When said juror's mustache starts falling, Batman figures out Catwoman and the Joker had their henchmen as the jury and they end up being arrested.]]