Supreme Court says unanimous jury verdicts
required in state criminal trials for serious
offenses
CNN,
by
Ariane De Vogue
Original Article
Posted By: earlybird,
4/20/2020 1:14:09 PM
Washington -The Supreme Court said Monday that unanimous jury verdicts are required in state criminal trials for serious offenses, handing a victory to criminal defendants including petitioner Evangelisto Ramos, who was convicted of murder in Louisiana on a 10-2 vote.
Ramos argued that Louisiana's non-unanimous jury provision violated his federal constitutional right to trial by jury and that the law had racist roots meant to diminish the votes of minority jurors.
Justice Neil Gorsuch penned the opinion and was joined in key parts by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Brett Kavanaugh.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
hershey 4/20/2020 1:18:55 PM (No. 385669)
Anything you can do to weasel out of a conviction...
7 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
GoodDeal 4/20/2020 1:45:16 PM (No. 385691)
So it's either a unanimous guilty verdict or not guilty? What kind of justice is that?
12 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
proximo 4/20/2020 1:59:20 PM (No. 385699)
Not a lawyer here but I suspect without a unanimous vote to convict, a mistrial would be declared and the prosecutors would have the option to retry or just let it go. For a charge of murder I can't believe they would choose to retry using a different jury.
0 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
PCMM 4/20/2020 1:59:40 PM (No. 385700)
Kavanaugh is a cowardly twerp, the type who’ll quiver and cry when a woman makes naughty accusations against him at a senate confirmation hearing. There’s only one man on the SCOTUS and he didn’t cry when Anita Hill was flinging poo at him.
12 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
proximo 4/20/2020 2:00:06 PM (No. 385701)
uh, "... can't believe they wouldn't choose to retry..."
4 people like this.
Madness.
2 people like this.
I don’t understand this. Every murder trial I’ve been on, the verdict had to be unanimous or we were called a hung jury. Each count had to be unanimous also.
12 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
snowoutlaw 4/20/2020 3:15:05 PM (No. 385760)
As it should be. I don't trust that "justice" is blind. Only civil cases are not needed to be unanimous.
6 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
WhamDBambam 4/20/2020 4:06:41 PM (No. 385794)
I always thought that when life and liberty are at stake, it took unanimous consent of a jury of your peers.
7 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
msjena 4/20/2020 4:07:04 PM (No. 385795)
I think the Court got it right. Jury verdicts in criminal cases should be unanimous. If they are not, the state can still retry the defendant.
7 people like this.
I always thought this was the norm. When did it change?
And shouldn't it be up to the individual states to decide how their own CJ system works?
1 person likes this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
CryIntheVoid 4/20/2020 5:09:50 PM (No. 385847)
Gigantic power grab the the Federal Supreme Court. Nowhere in the constitution did it say anyone have a right to a unanimous juror verdict. Enacting constitutional limit on the federal government to the state sound good, until you realized that it give the federal government absolute power since it know become the ultimate “protector” of any citizen where ever he reside.
The state have to right and power to determine the exercise of it’s justice as long as the laws and punishment is uniform to all that reside in that particular state.
0 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
MickTurn 4/20/2020 7:09:41 PM (No. 385913)
Translation: Lawyers can choose a hack juror to throw the case. Thanks SCOTUS, once again you follow twisted logic and allow law to be a farce.
SO why is 80% a bad majority? With all the crooked stuff going on maybe you need to revise your thinking to something other than 100%...I would think 80% is a minimum...if it's 100% does that cut off all appeals...NO!
Remember the convicted still has all the appeals etc...not like they hang in the morning!
2 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
chumley 4/20/2020 8:32:23 PM (No. 385970)
Good rule. Would you want your future placed in the hands of a majority of people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty? Or would it be better for the prosecution to have to convince ALL of them?
You play a dangerous game if you trust your reputation, your liberty and your future to the judicial system.
2 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Pete Stone 4/20/2020 11:02:29 PM (No. 386064)
Read the article, folks! Louisiana and Oregon are the only states that allowed convictions on a less-then-unanimous jury verdict.
0 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Trigger2 4/21/2020 1:30:13 AM (No. 386131)
But, but, how else can Soros engineered placement of demonrat prosecutors railroad someone into jail?
0 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
msjena 4/21/2020 10:31:08 AM (No. 386453)
The Court long ago said that juries in federal criminal cases had to be unanimous. The Sixth Amendment also doesn't specify the number of jurors, but 12 are required in criminal cases. It is likely based on a determination of original intent, due process and the beyond a reasonable doubt requirement. On the last point, it is assumed there is some reasonable doubt if the verdict is not unanimous. This case had to do with whether the same rules applied to the states.
0 people like this.
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