Opinion
2018 KA 0746R
07-09-2020
STATE OF LOUISIANA v. JACE CREHAN
Hillar Moore, III District Attorney Allison Miller Rutzen Assistant District Attorney Baton Rouge, Louisiana Attorneys for Appellee State of Louisiana Bruce G. Whittaker New Orleans, Louisiana Attorney for Appellant Jace Crehan
NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION
On Appeal from the Nineteenth Judicial District Court In and for the Parish of East Baton Rouge State of Louisiana
Trial Court No. 09-15-0123 The Honorable Anthony J. Marabella, Jr., Judge Presiding Hillar Moore, III
District Attorney
Allison Miller Rutzen
Assistant District Attorney
Baton Rouge, Louisiana Attorneys for Appellee
State of Louisiana Bruce G. Whittaker
New Orleans, Louisiana Attorney for Appellant
Jace Crehan BEFORE: GUIDRY, THERIOT, AND PENZATO, JJ. PENZATO, J.
Defendant, Jace Crehan, was charged by grand jury indictment with second degree murder, a violation of La. R.S. 14:30.1. He pled not guilty. After a trial by jury, defendant was found guilty as charged by eleven of twelve jurors. Defendant filed a motion for new trial, which was denied by the trial court. Immediately following the denial, the trial court imposed a term of life imprisonment at hard labor, to be served without the benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence. This court denied defendant's appeal. State v. Crehan, 2018-0746 (La. App. 1st Cir. 11/5/18), 2018 WL 5785479 (unpublished). The Louisiana Supreme Court denied writs. State v. Crehan, 2018-2024 (La. 4/15/19), 267 So.3d 1124.
Defendant filed a writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court, which was granted. This court's judgment was vacated and the case was remanded to this court for further proceedings consistent with the Court's ruling in Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. ___, 140 S.Ct. 1390, 206 L.Ed.2d 583 (2020). Crehan v. Louisiana, ___ U.S. ___, ___ S.Ct. ___, 2020 WL 1978930. Justice Alito, concurring in the Court's decision to vacate and remand the instant case, did so "on the understanding that the Court is not deciding or expressing a view on whether the question was properly raised below but is instead leaving that question to be decided on remand." Id. Here, defendant filed a motion for new trial in which he claimed, among other things, Louisiana's non-unanimous jury verdict provisions are unconstitutional, and he also assigned his conviction by a non-unanimous jury verdict as error on appeal.
Further, we note that the Louisiana Supreme Court recently remanded several cases to this court in which defendants were convicted by a non-unanimous jury verdict, wherein the court ordered this court to conduct an error patent review pursuant to La. Code Crim. P. art 920(2), even when the issue was not preserved for review. See e.g., State v. Cagler, 2018-02015 (La. 6/3/20), ___ So.3d ___, 2020 WL 3423802 (per curiam).
In the recent decision of Ramos, the United States Supreme Court overruled Apodaca v. Oregon and held that the right to a jury trial under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, incorporated against the States by way of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, requires a unanimous verdict to convict a defendant of a serious offense. Ramos, 140 S.Ct. at 1397. The Ramos Court further noted that its ruling applied to those defendants convicted of felonies by non-unanimous verdicts whose cases are still pending on direct appeal. Ramos, 140 S.Ct. at 1406.
Oregon's non-unanimous jury verdict provision of its state constitution was challenged in Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404, 92 S.Ct. 1628, 32 L.Ed.2d 184 (1972). Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. 356, 92 S.Ct. 1620, 32 L.Ed.2d 152 (1972), decided with Apodaca, upheld Louisiana's then-existing constitutional and statutory provisions allowing nine-to-three jury verdicts in criminal cases. --------
Accordingly, defendant's conviction and sentence are set aside, and the case is remanded for a new trial.
CONVICTION AND SENTENCE SET ASIDE; REMANDED FOR NEW TRIAL