Louisiana Supreme Court Denies Retrial for Nonunanimous Jury Convictions After Practice Ruled Unconstitutional
October 22, 2022 | Louisiana
A divided Supreme Court of Louisiana ruled that a ban on nonunanimous jury verdicts will not be applied retroactively, which means up to 1,500 inmates who were convicted by split juries will not get a new trial.
The ruling (pdf) on Oct. 21 in State of Louisiana v. Reddick, court file 2021-KP-01893, comes out of the appeal of Reginald Reddick, who challenged his 10-2 conviction for a 1993 second-degree murder after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that nonunanimous criminal jury verdicts were unconstitutional.
One Louisiana justice dissented, and another dissented in part.
Retrying those already convicted by less-than-unanimous juries in the state would impose too great an administrative burden on the courts and was not required by the state constitutional amendment voters approved in 2018 requiring unanimous jury verdicts going forward, the Louisiana high court found.
The amendment approved by voters has “prospective effect only,” Justice Scott Crichton, a Republican, wrote for the court.
Their “solemn decision … should not be disturbed by the judiciary, whose role as a co-equal branch of government is to interpret the laws, not to announce policy more rightfully reserved to the legislature.”
Justice Piper Griffin, a Democrat, wrote in her dissent that bureaucratic inconvenience should not stand in the way of justice…. (Excerpt from The Epoch Times)
