As reported below by the ABA Journal Law News, the ABA is urging the Supreme Court to take up the issue of non-unanimous verdicts. The ABA recently filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to hear the appeal of a defendant in Louisiana who was convicted by a 10-2 verdict. Similar efforts (Herrera v. Oregon), led by Prof. Volokh, are going on with respect to a case in Oregon.
As discussed previously on this blog, Oregon and Louisiana are the only two states that allow for non-unanimous verdicts. The Supreme Court punted (Bowen v. Oregon) on this issue last term but may be inclined to take it on this time around.
The ABA is asking the Supreme Court to accept the appeal of Louisiana inmate Troy Barbour, convicted of attempted second-degree murder for shooting his employer during a quarrel. Jurors voted to convict Barbour by a 10-2 vote, according to the cert petition (PDF) filed by the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. The ABA brief(PDF) points out its revised Criminal Justice Standards no longer support nonunanimous verdicts in criminal cases, according to The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times and an ABA news release.
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