SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Supreme Court rules non-unanimous jury verdicts unconstitutional
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that defendants in criminal trials can only be convicted by a unanimous jury, striking down a scheme that has been rejected by every state except one. The court said in a divided opinion that the Constitution requires agreement among all members of a jury in order to impose a guilty verdict.
"Wherever we might look to determine what the term 'trial by an impartial jury trial' meant at the time of the Sixth Amendment's adoption—whether it's the common law, state practices in the founding era, or opinions and treatises written soon afterward—the answer is unmistakable," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in an opinion. "A jury must reach a unanimous verdict in order to convict."
Oregon is the only state left in which defendants can be convicted over the dissent of up to two jurors. Louisiana recently abandoned the practice after more than a century of use.
The ruling overturns the 2016 conviction of a Louisiana man named Evangelisto Ramos. A jury by a 10-2 margin found him guilty of killing a woman in New Orleans. Two years after Ramos's conviction, Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment getting rid of non-unanimous jury verdicts. The new ruling likely means that Ramos could get a new trial.
From the Ramos v. Louisiana syllabus:
In 48 States and federal court, a single juror's vote to acquit is enough to prevent a conviction. But two States, Louisiana and Oregon, have long punished people based on 10-to-2 verdicts. In this case, petitioner Evangelisto Ramos was convicted of a serious crime in a Louisiana court by a 10-to-2 jury verdict. Instead of the mistrial he would have received almost anywhere else, Ramos was sentenced to life without parole. He contests his conviction by a nonunanimous jury as an unconstitutional denial of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.
Held: The judgment is reversed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 22 2020, @05:49PM (1 child)
The Constitution does not explicitly state that criminal convictions must be unanimous. However, the Supreme Court has interpreted the due process clause to require that criminal convictions apply the standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. An early discussion of this is in Miles v. United States (1880) [cornell.edu]. The In re Winship (1970) [cornell.edu] ruling explicitly states that the due process clauses of the fifth and fourteenth amendments require that criminal convictions satisfy the standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a fundamental principle of our legal system.
The sixth amendment guarantees the right to trial by jury in all criminal trials. Because of the fourteenth amendment, this right has been incorporated and applies in criminal trials by the states. Due process is explicitly required by the fourteenth amendment. This means that all criminal trails by the states must also adhere to the standard of reasonable doubt to convict.
Patton v. United States (1930) [cornell.edu] discusses the common law basis for jury trials, including the size of the jury and the requirement of unanimity for criminal convictions. While this is not the original basis for requiring a unanimous verdict for criminal convictions, it references prior cases that had already established this standard.
The common law argument is compelling, but the standard of requiring guilt beyond a reasonable doubt also should require unanimity. If a single juror finds that there is sufficient doubt so as to refuse to convict, then that should mean there is reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday April 22 2020, @09:55PM
No, there is very little statistical difference between 85% of the jury being fairly certain and 100% of the jury being fairly certain. I could see an argument that only requiring 50% or 51% for a conviction runs afoul of the "beyond a reasonable doubt" clause but requiring over 80% is the same as requiring 100% within reasonable error bounds. But also I was not commenting on these amendments, I focused specifically on their claims that the Sixth Amendment guaranteed unanimous juries. Which I think we both agree is ridiculous and obviously false?
I am not talking about common law, I am talking about the constitution and on what the drafters meant by what they wrote in it. But on the topic, does the constitution require all states to follow the same common law?