Thursday, March 21, 2019

Supreme Court to consider Louisiana 's non-unanimous juries.

The Supreme will consider overturning a criminal conviction by 10-2 jury vote in Louisiana.
The justice acted on Monday, four months after Louisiana voters amended the state constitution to prohibit non-unanimous verdicts in criminals cases.

Oregon is the only state still allow them. The high court will consider the case Evangelisto Ramos , who was convicted in 2016 of second degree murder in the killing of a women in New Orleans. Ramos is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole. The change in the state constitution took effected in January, but is of no help to Ramos without court action. The last time the Supreme Court took up the issue was in 1972. when it ruled that nothing in the Constitution bars state from allowing some convictions by non-unanimous verdicts. But even in Oregon and Louisiana, first -degree murder, which could bring the death penalty , has required a unanimous verdict.

The court has held that the six Amendment requires unanimous verdicts in federal criminal cases. The 1972 case turned on the vote of justice Lewis Powell. The court said states were not completed to follow suit and require unanimous juries in all criminal cases.

At the same time , the Supreme Court has determined that most rights guaranteed by the first 10 amendments to the constitution apply to states as well as the federal government.

 Also Monday , the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether states can eliminate the so-called insanity defense for criminal defendants without violating the constitution
  
The appeal come from a Kansas man who has been sentenced to death for the killing his estranged wife their two daughters and the wife's grandmother. These case will be argued in the fall. mostly likely in October. It was a honor to be part of this wonderful so far successful movement..