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re: Unanimous Juries- How ya votin and why?
Posted on 10/26/18 at 6:29 pm to SCLibertarian
Posted on 10/26/18 at 6:29 pm to SCLibertarian
quote:
How non-unanimous juries in criminal trials survive constitutional scrutiny is beyond me. The presence of 1 or 2 jurors out of 12 who vote not guilty seems to be the definition of reasonable doubt
Agree 100%
0
Posted on 10/26/18 at 6:30 pm to reedus23
Almost all cases are pled without a trial. The 10/12 has a racially charged background. The deck is stacked against the defendant. You won’t believe this until it’s you or one of your close friends.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 6:51 pm to The Johnny Lawrence
I'm a big fan of unanimous juries in theory. However, I like many other posters have personally witnessed some jackasses defy logic for personal reasons.
I sat on an attempted murder case where the defendant got off after an 8-4 hung jury. They guy shot another man and as a result of the injury was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. The four African Americans in the jury voted no(two men, two women), despite ample evidence. Six months later, I see the same man in the newspaper after he was arrested for murder. He went back and killed the crippled man. This time he was convicted, but the damage has already been done.
I sat on an attempted murder case where the defendant got off after an 8-4 hung jury. They guy shot another man and as a result of the injury was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. The four African Americans in the jury voted no(two men, two women), despite ample evidence. Six months later, I see the same man in the newspaper after he was arrested for murder. He went back and killed the crippled man. This time he was convicted, but the damage has already been done.
This post was edited on 10/26/18 at 6:52 pm
Posted on 10/26/18 at 6:57 pm to Joshjrn
quote:
Why do people keep repeating this utterly incorrect nonsense? A hung jury causes a mistrial. The state has a year to retry the case from that date. Nobody is “walking free” when the jury hangs. The state can try someone as many times as necessary to get a valid jury verdict.
My main thing regarding all this is making it more difficult for the state to strip someone of their liberty in this context and I get the whole thing about hung jury and retrying the criminal case and all that that accompanies something like this but even if that happens the accused is still presumed innocent, the accused is still entitled to his 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment criminal procedure rights, and the state still bears the burden of proving he committed a crime beyond a reasonable doubt and I'm completely fine with that bc thats how the rule of law is supposed to work. Its really fundamentally about elevating the safeguards against state power regarding a human being's liberty and I'd assume people in our freedom-based society would be inarguably down with that but apparently not. I guess thats the reason Mary Landrieu lasted as Senator for as long as she did and Edwin Edwards kept getting elected to posts despite all his clear baggage, Louisiana, man.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 6:59 pm to The Johnny Lawrence
I wish we were voting to implement non-unanimous juries in Alabama.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 7:02 pm to zeebo
quote:
Almost all cases are pled without a trial. The 10/12 has a racially charged background. The deck is stacked against the defendant. You won’t believe this until it’s you or one of your close friends.
Yes, I realize only a small percentage of cases go to trial. I kind of assumed that the 10/12 verdict had a racial background. With it, a black defendant can be convicted even if there are 2 black jurors, as long as the other 10 are white. Things may have evolved a bit, but that's where the background would stem from.
I do believe it. Thankfully no one close has ever been charged with speeding. Plenty have served on juries. I never have but had spent plenty of time in front of juries.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 7:10 pm to reedus23
quote:
You're right. I'm gonna bet that Louisiana is a collectively smarter state than the other 48 and have it figured out while no one else does.
Actually our uneducated population (jurors) make the case for non-unanimous convictions. The likelihood of an idiot on the jury whose opinion needs to be ignored is much higher.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 7:32 pm to I B Freeman
quote:Then you’re in luck. The existing law requires unanimous jury verdicts to convict or acquit in capital offense cases.
I voted but I agree it should be unanimous on capital cases.
The proposed amendment doesn’t affect that.
Fwiw, by my count every poster in this thread who I know is an attorney wants to change the law to require unanimous verdicts for all felonies.
It’s almost as if lawyers would benefit financially if there are more hung juries resulting in more trials. Hmmmm.......
Posted on 10/26/18 at 7:43 pm to Joshjrn
So 10 out of 42 DAs support the unanimous verdict amendment?
Is that your way of saying the amendment has widespread support from DAs across the state? Even when one DA quoted in your article as saying, “even though some backers of the status quo, including Sabine Parish District Attorney Don Burkett, claimed that the LDAA was nearly united against the change.“
Is that your way of saying the amendment has widespread support from DAs across the state? Even when one DA quoted in your article as saying, “even though some backers of the status quo, including Sabine Parish District Attorney Don Burkett, claimed that the LDAA was nearly united against the change.“
Posted on 10/26/18 at 7:49 pm to The Johnny Lawrence
There is a non-trivial percentage of people in this state who will NEVER convict a member of their own ethnic group.
Voting No.
Voting No.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 7:52 pm to MikeBRLA
quote:
Actually our uneducated population (jurors) make the case for non-unanimous convictions. The likelihood of an idiot on the jury whose opinion needs to be ignored is much higher.
Being a bit more serious, Louisiana doesn't corner the market with the uneducated. Every state has them. Many juries have them. 48 states have said it takes a unanimous verdict to deprive someone of their liberty.
I get it though. It can be maddening to see a case where guilt seems so obvious.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 8:00 pm to LSURussian
quote:
Fwiw, by my count every poster in this thread who I know is an attorney wants to change the law to require unanimous verdicts for all felonies.
It’s almost as if lawyers would benefit financially if there are more hung juries resulting in more trials. Hmmmm.......
Im about to be an attorney in less than a year and I can assure you my reasons for supporting this are not business-related they're qualitative law-related, whats fundamentally wrong with making it harder for the government to convict defendants? We're a freedom-based society and the burden for convicting defendants is justifiably high hell it probably should be higher, we're talking about a human being's freedom here, man, this is bigger than money and all those material things this is about a society and protecting a private person from their government. I'm sure you're aware of the "pristine" record of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, all those totalitarian regimes so yeah, from my perspective, STFU.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 8:03 pm to LSURussian
quote:
I'm voting no as a a result of my personal experience being on a criminal case jury.
Same here from my own experience on a jury. We didn't have the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt for a second degree conviction and one juror stood firm on second degree and would not budge. Two others changed their mind to agree with manslaughter and that was the final verdict. Guilt was never in question with any of us. The holdout juror wanted the maximum sentence and nothing was going to change his mind.
Had this been a required unanimous verdict, it probably would have resulted in a hung jury.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 8:06 pm to LSURussian
quote:
Fwiw, by my count every poster in this thread who I know is an attorney wants to change the law to require unanimous verdicts for all felonies. It’s almost as if lawyers would benefit financially if there are more hung juries resulting in more trials. Hmmmm.......
You made the same asinine argument in the last thread. When I informed you that public defenders are salaried and private defense attorneys generally bill an upfront fee to handle a case from beginning to end (generally defined as complete at dismissal/acquittal/sentencing), you basically called me a liar.
But to repeat it once more, and simply: every hung jury is a net drain on a public defender’s resources with zero extra pay. Every hung jury means more work for a private attorney on a case in which they have already been paid, keeping them from focusing on getting a new paying client.
Defense attorneys of either stripe will likely see zero financial gain if this passes.
Stop talking out of your arse.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 8:11 pm to Joshjrn
You protest too much. Every time. That’s how I know I’m right.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 8:16 pm to WildTchoupitoulas
Oregon us only other state that does not require unanimous verdict.
Not sure of the history of Oregon's reason.
My niece in Portland told me news reports on Oregon's attempt to change their laws basically saying "we don't want to be like Louisiana"
Don't know if that's funny or sad...
Not sure of the history of Oregon's reason.
My niece in Portland told me news reports on Oregon's attempt to change their laws basically saying "we don't want to be like Louisiana"
Don't know if that's funny or sad...
Posted on 10/26/18 at 8:17 pm to LSURussian
For me, my support of unanimous juries is simple. R
1) It's SUPPOSED to be hard for the state to exercise force upon its citizens and quite obviously, punishing them is the most direct exercise of this force.
2) It seems to me that if you have enough to quality as "beyond reasonable doubt", then you should be able to convince the whole jury.
Now, I can hear the complaints now. "What about the jury with 1 or 2 assholes?
Simple answer. Yeah. Sometimes, the govt will lose some it probably should win.
I'll take that over the opposite. Hell, I honestly can't believe there's ANY disagreement on that point.
1) It's SUPPOSED to be hard for the state to exercise force upon its citizens and quite obviously, punishing them is the most direct exercise of this force.
2) It seems to me that if you have enough to quality as "beyond reasonable doubt", then you should be able to convince the whole jury.
Now, I can hear the complaints now. "What about the jury with 1 or 2 assholes?
Simple answer. Yeah. Sometimes, the govt will lose some it probably should win.
I'll take that over the opposite. Hell, I honestly can't believe there's ANY disagreement on that point.
Posted on 10/26/18 at 8:17 pm to LSURussian
quote:
You protest too much. Every time. That’s how I know I’m right.
It takes a single sentence to make a bullshite assertion. It generally takes quite a few to disprove it. It’s why a Gish Gallop is so effective in debate if you allow it to run unchecked.
But you’re a special kind of delusional. People post in agreement with you? Proves you’re right. People ignore your post? Proves you’re right. Someone weakly argues against your post? Proves you’re right. Someone with vastly more knowledge than you on a given subject explains in detail why you’re wrong? Proves you’re right.
You’ve created quite the safe space in your own head.
This post was edited on 10/26/18 at 8:19 pm
Posted on 10/26/18 at 8:20 pm to BRTigerDad
Man, how awesome would our country be if every Justice on our Supreme Court was Justice Scalia? A textualist/originalist of the highest order who was VERY pro-defendant in his opinions, dude straight up did not trust the government when it came to stripping a human being of his/her liberty, mad respect bro. 
Posted on 10/26/18 at 8:21 pm to ThePTExperience1969
quote:
We're a freedom-based society
I wish. Unfortunately tribalism and identity politics are firmly entrenched in numerous cultures in the U.S.
If I knew that all 12 jurors would have a basic understanding and appreciation of INDIVIDUAL freedoms, then sure, unanimous verdicts. But that’s fantasy world.
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