NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Bans on non-unanimous jury convictions — banned by Louisiana voters in 2018 and later by the U.S. Supreme Court — do not have to apply retrospectively to previous convictions, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The verdict came in the case of Reginald Reddick, who had been convicted of murder in 1997 by a 10-2 jury vote, but the court acknowledged that it affected hundreds of other people who voted 10-2 or 11-1 jury convicted.
In 2018, Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment that would ban unanimous verdicts in trials for crimes committed after January 1, 2019. At the time, Louisiana was one of only two states that allowed such verdicts.
In 2020, the US Supreme Court ruled that unanimous verdicts were unconstitutional, extending the effect of the state’s constitutional amendment.
But in 2021, in a case known as Ramos v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court clarified that its ruling against non-unanimous verdicts applied only to future cases and cases in which the defendants’ appeals had not been exhausted.
Judge Scott Crichton cited the Ramos case and other case law in Friday’s state high court majority decision, noting that neither federal nor state law required the ban to be applied retrospectively.
Crichton’s opinion acknowledged that non-unanimous verdict provisions dated from the late 19th century and were probably a way of undermining black participation in juries. But he said a provision allowing 10-2 verdicts was included in a new state constitution passed in 1974 and “there are racially neutral, legitimate and rational arguments justifying a non-unanimous jury rule.”
Four other justices – John Weimer, William Crain, Jay McCallum and Jefferson Hughes – were in the majority.
Judge Piper Griffin disagreed. “That the 1974 Louisiana Constitution somehow stripped the non-unanimous jury system of its racist animus and influence is an untenable position,” she wrote.
Judge James Genovese wrote a partial dissent, saying that new trials were warranted in some non-unanimous cases.
“I believe that a new trial should be ordered in cases where an African-American defendant can prove, by a preponderance of evidence, that an African-American jury deviated from majority decision in order to convict the defendant of the alleged crime,” Genovese wrote.
According to Crichton, the number of people incarcerated in the state based on disagreements is unclear, but is “certainly in the hundreds.” One advocacy group estimates that more than 1,500 are incarcerated in the state on such convictions.
In an argument before the Supreme Court in May, Jamila Johnson, arguing for Reddick, cited the Jim Crow-era history of discordant juries. She argued that the injustice in the Reddick case made the problems with the law “structural in nature,” so it didn’t matter if the defendant in a particular case was white or that the appeal record is now unclear about the race of the jurors at Who 1997 voted to acquit her client.
Prosecutors had opposed retroactivity, saying judicial efficiency was the goal of maintaining unanimous judgments in the 1974 constitution.
Friday’s verdict drew criticism from an organization following a new trial against Reddick.
“It’s a loss for every Louisian. Our courts must protect our fundamental rights and freedoms,” the Promise of Justice Initiative said in a statement. “Our clients have never had a fair shake, and now the Louisiana Supreme Court has declared they never will.”
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