5 ms·
Having been on a jury, I thought requiring a unanimous decision for a conviction was how juries operated in the US in general. I'm surprised to learn that there
by korethr 7y ago
Having been on a jury, I thought requiring a unanimous decision for a conviction was how juries operated in the US in general. I'm surprised to learn that there were states that were an exception. I'm not surprised to learn that said exceptions have racist origins and use. There's been a lot of bullshit on the books put there for racist reasons.
I'd thought said BS was largely gone from the books. Well, regardless how how much BS still remains or doesn't, I'll happily take one more bit of it being removed.
- icelancer 7y ago>> I'd thought said BS was largely gone from the books. It basically was by the time this case was argued. But there was sufficient interest in how to rule on it (see Thomas' concurrence with the judgement only, and Kagan's dissent). The 6-3 split was pretty fractured as evidence for why they wanted to hear it. It is no surprise Gorsuch wrote the court's opinion; he has a particular disdain for things that impede civil liberties.
- Natsu 7y agoBasically, there are two statues (Louisiana & Oregon) which do not require unanimous juries. It seems like this was done to prevent a few dissenters from preventing convictions. The split in the court is because some justices are worried about undoing something that has been used for more than a hundred years and upsetting a ton of cases.
- C1sc0cat 7y agoDoesn't Louisiana derive some laws from the code napoleon
- boomboomsubban 7y agoThey do, but this practice started in their 1898 constitution that was openly drafted with a goal of establishing white supremacy.
- pwned1 7y agoLouisiana got rid of their non-unanimous jury law a couple of years ago. Oregon was the last state with such laws as of yesterday's Supreme Court opinion.
- Natsu 7y agoThis may overturn prior verdicts, though, too, if I understand it right.
- beervirus 7y agoI’m a lawyer, and I thought the same thing.
- sigzero 7y agoThere are only 2 or 3 States that don't have the unanimous rule.