Twelve, Neither More Nor Less
The jury box in a Florida criminal courtroom holds six chairs. In one of those courtrooms, in West Palm Beach, six people heard the state’s case against a chiropractor named Hamed Kian, and they convicted him on every count. Kian is forty-five years old, with an office up the road in Jupiter. Florida had suspended his license after three women he had treated complained that he kissed or touched them inappropriately, and prosecutors said he went right on seeing patients. The charge was practicing chiropractic medicine with a suspended license, a third-degree felony, five counts of it. He drew a year and a day in prison and five years of probation. The Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed in October 2025 and did not write an opinion, because none of this is unusual in Florida. Florida seats twelve jurors only in capital cases. Everything else, from this chiropractor’s case to armed robbery, has gone to six jurors since 1877.

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