State Supreme Court hears case that could overturn hundreds of split-jury convictions

The Louisiana Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in a case that could determine the fate of hundreds of prisoners throughout the state who are locked up on non-unanimous jury verdicts, which were legal in the state until 2019 and ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court the following year.

Lawyers for Reginald Reddick, who was convicted by a split-jury in 1997 for a murder in Plaquemines Parish and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, say that his verdict was based on an unconstitutional and historically racist law, and that he, along with more than 1,000 other people in his position, are entitled to new trials.

“I think that we have up to 1,500 people who don’t have a constitutional verdict one way or another,” Jamila Johnson, a lawyer with the Promise of Justice Initiative, which is representing Reddick, told the justices during Tuesday’s arguments. “Their innocence or guilt has not been established.”

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has opposed Reddick and other prisoners’ petitions for new trials based on their split-jury convictions, arguing that split-jury verdicts weren’t fundamentally unfair. Attorney’s with his office claim that being forced to retry hundreds of cases would be too burdensome for prosecutors across the state.

Read more: https://thelensnola.org/2022/05/10/state-supreme-court-hears-case-that-could-overturn-hundreds-of-split-jury-convictions/