The Supreme Court decided earlier
this week that it would not hear a case about whether the Sixth Amendment right
to a jury trial includes a condition that the juries reach their verdicts
unanimously.
The issue arose because two
states, Louisiana and Oregon, allow criminal convictions with
less-than-unanimous verdicts. Defendants in both states can be found guilty of
a crime if jurors split 11-1 or 10-2. Every other state and the federal
government require that jurors reach a unanimous verdict.
Lawyers in Louisiana have long
argued that the U.S. Supreme Court should hear the case given that they claim
the rule is a product of Jim Crow-era laws that were put in place to
marginalize the role of African-Americans in the legal system. Advocates for
change insist that the racial impact of the law is still being seen today. In
Jefferson Parish, prospective black jurors are challenged at more than three
times the rate of prospective white jurors. Given this imbalance, and the
state’s non-unanimous system, a full 80% of guilty verdicts in Jefferson parish
are able to be decided without any black votes in favor of conviction.
Those attorneys arguing that the
Court agree to hear the case further claimed that the less-than-unanimous
system reduces jury reliability. They pointed out that Jefferson Parish in
Louisiana, where the case at issue originated, has the fourth highest rate of
wrongful jury convictions in the country. Adjacent Orleans Parish has the
highest rate.
The case at issue involves Corey
Miller, a rapper from New Orleans who was convicted of second-degree murder
back in 2002 after a nightclub shooting killed a 16-year-old. The crime scene
was chaotic and testimony during trial was conflicted. Miller was tried and
convicted with a vote of 10-2. As a result of his conviction, he was sentenced
to life in prison without the chance for parole.
The issue of non-unanimous jury
verdicts was considered by the Supreme Court once before, in 1972. In that
case, the court split 4-4 until Justice Powell broke the tie, coming down in
support of non-unanimous verdicts. At the time, more than 40 years ago, Louisiana
and Oregon were the only states with such systems. Today, the two states remain
alone. This legal isolation is what has prompted many to insist the systems are
backwards and in need of modernization.
Source:
“Unanimous
juries for criminal convictions? Supreme Court declines case,” by Warren Richey,
published at CSMonitor.com.
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