Louisianans pass amendment ending split jury verdicts
12th November 2018 · 0 Comments
Although it was not billed as another step to permanently end the state’s dubious honor as the world’s “prison capital” and represented a rare example of “purple bipartisan cooperation” in this Red state. Louisiana voters on Tuesday cast off a vestige of white supremacy and racial injustice with the decision to do away with split jury verdicts.
The Associated Press reported that the constitutional amendment to end non-unanimous jury verdicts in Louisiana was approved Nov. 6 by the state’s voters.
The amendment, which ends a Jim Crow law crafted during the late 19th century, takes effect Jan. 1 and will leave Oregon as the only other state allowing split verdicts. It reverses a Jim Crow-era practice that made it easier to imprison non-whites by allowing as few as 10 members of a 12-member jury to convict defendants in felony cases not involving death sentences.
The amendment was pushed through the Louisiana Legislature by State Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans, The Associated Press reported. It received more than the necessary two-thirds approval in the House and Senate and drew strong support from factions rarely on the same page: On the right, supporters included the Christian conservative Louisiana Family Forum and the Koch Brother’s political organization Americans for Prosperity; On the left, supporters included the American Civil Liberties Union and Innocence Project New Orleans.
The amendment was endorsed by everyone from U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, as well as a myriad of civil rights and grassroots organizations across the state.
The amendment also received a groundswell of support from Millennials and women who were motivated to go the polls in large numbers after the election of President Donald Trump and issues like immigration and sexual assault.
Supporters of the change noted the wide-ranging support the measure received as they celebrated their victory Tuesday.
“We have shown the nation that the people they are used to seeing fight against each other will come together for the common cause of freedom. That we will fight side by side for the liberty of our neighbors,” said Norris Henderson, state director of the Unanimous Jury Coalition.
Some district attorneys and their supporters in the Legislature opposed the measure, not wanting to make prosecutors’ jobs more challenging.
Not convinced by arguments that current law could result in the conviction of innocent people, Ed Burkett, the district attorney in rural Sabine Parish, said the amendment would enable a single juror to prevent conviction in a case where evidence proves guilt. “Justice is also not served when guilty people are not convicted,” Burkett said in an interview.
But Anne Ferris, a 43-year-old New Orleans resident who voted for the amendment Tuesday, said that wasn’t a good enough reason to allow non-unanimous verdicts to continue. She said she hadn’t realized until recently that felony juries didn’t have to be unanimous.
“There should be a unanimous verdict whenever there’s a jury trial. If there’s not a unanimous verdict then it’s a hung jury,” she said. “If it makes it harder, sorry. The prosecution needs to do a little bit better I guess.”
The Louisiana District Attorneys Association stayed neutral, and district attorneys supporting the measure included Hillar Moore III in Baton Rouge, James Stewart in Caddo Parish, Keith Stutes in Lafayette and Paul Connick of Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans. New Orleans’ district attorney Leon Cannizzaro is staying neutral.
The Associated Press reported that Ed Tarpley, former district attorney in Grant Parish, championed the amendment.
“Once you know the history of this law, then you have to vote to repeal it,” Tarpley told The Press Club of Baton Rouge in July. “This is something that is a stain on the legacy of our state.”
He was referring to the split-jury policy’s post-Civil War roots in white supremacy.
But a racist legacy wasn’t the only reason supporters sought to overturn non-unanimous verdicts. There was also a view shared by those across the political spectrum that government doesn’t always get things right.
It was an attitude summed up in words flashing across computer screens in a 30-second online add by AFP. “Imagine your child is charged with a crime she didn’t commit,” the ad said. “Multiple jurors agree she is innocent but the government sends her to prison anyway. It happens in Louisiana.”
Last year, the Louisiana Legislature passed a series of criminal justice reforms that led to the early release of some of the state’s non-violent offenders and ended Louisiana’s title as the nation and the world’s “prison capital.”
That title now belongs to the state of Oklahoma as Louisiana ponders other ways to reduce its spending for the budget of the state’s Department of Public Safety and Corrections.”
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has proposed using the funds saved to help former prison inmates to build productive lives after their release and to lower recidivism rates.
“While Louisiana still has a long way to go to clean up its act and move beyond the racially oppressive polices, laws and practices of the past and do away with injustice in the criminal justice system, this at least gives you a drop of hope that things could get better if we keep organizing and working together to move the state forward,” Ramessu Merriamen Aha, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, told The Louisiana Weekly Thursday. “And sometimes a little hope is all you need.”
This article originally published in the November 12, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
