Word.ws English Dictionary

Allen charge

Allen charge noun: an instruction intended to prevent a hung jury by encouraging jurors in the minority to reconsider.

Noun

Allen charge (plural Allen charges)

  1. (US) An instruction intended to prevent a hung jury by encouraging jurors in the minority to reconsider.
    • Judge Shira A. Scheindlin read the panel the Allen charge, an instruction meant to encourage juries to continue working until they reach a verdict, and sent them back to continue deliberating.2006 September 26, Timothy Williams, “Gotti Jurors Say They’re Deadlocked”, in New York Times, retrieved 14 Jul 2015

Forms of Allen charge

pluralAllen charges

Origin of Allen charge

After the legal case Allen v. United States (1896).

Questions about Allen charge

What does Allen charge mean?
Allen charge means an instruction intended to prevent a hung jury by encouraging jurors in the minority to reconsider.
What part of speech is Allen charge?
Allen charge is a noun.
What is the plural of Allen charge?
The plural of Allen charge is Allen charges.

Words near Allen charge in the dictionary

  1. allemontite
  2. allemontites
  3. Allen
  4. Allen bolt
  5. Allen bolts
  6. Allen charge
  7. Allen charges
  8. Allen County
  9. Allen curve
  10. Allen curves
  11. Allen key

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Allen charge (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Allen charge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/allen_charge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.