For Decades, Split-Jury Convictions Imprisoned and Silenced Black Defendants. The Supreme Court Finally Found Them Unconstitutional
It’s a rule so common, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was law across the U.S.: that in order to be convicted by a jury of your peers, that jury has to unanimously agree on your guilt.
For almost a hundred years, this wasn’t the case in Louisiana, where split decision votes of at least 10-2 could sentence someone to life in prison until the state changed the law last year. Oregon also allowed split-decision convictions on much narrower margins, and until today, it was the only state in the union where this was the case.
Read more at The Root.