Summary
In Norman, the defense requested polling, but polling was stopped after the first ten jurors, so the matter was remanded to ascertain whether the verdict was unanimous.
Summary of this case from State v. JonesOpinion
No. 2020-K-00109
07-02-2020
STATE of Louisiana v. Dermaine NORMAN
Writ application granted in part. See per curiam.
Johnson, C.J., dissents and assigns reasons.
PER CURIAM*
Writ granted in part. The United States Supreme Court determined in Ramos v. Louisiana , 590 U.S. ––––, 140 S.Ct. 1390, 206 L.Ed.2d 583 (2020), that the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial, as incorporated against the States by way of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires a unanimous verdict to convict a defendant of a serious offense. In accordance with Griffith v. Kentucky , 479 U.S. 314, 328, 107 S.Ct. 708, 716, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987), that ruling applies retroactively to all cases pending on direct review or not yet final. Defendant's conviction was not final when Ramos was decided. However, the court of appeal found with the benefit of the record that the district court ceased polling the jury after the first ten jurors. Thus, it is not known whether the verdict was unanimous. Accordingly, we grant the application in part to remand to the trial court, which is ordered to conduct further proceedings to ascertain whether the verdict was unanimous. The trial court shall provide a per curiam to this Court within ten days of ruling on the Ramos issue and stating the outcome. If the trial court denies relief under Ramos , defendant can appeal separately on that basis. The remainder of the defendant's claims will be considered by this Court once the Ramos issue is resolved.
JOHNSON, C.J., dissents and assigns reasons:
I would grant the writ and remand for a new trial, pursuant to Ramos v. Louisiana , ––– U.S. ––––, 140 S. Ct. 1390, 206 L.Ed.2d 583 (2020). Since Mr. Norman's October 2016 trial, the publicity surrounding non-unanimous jury verdicts grew exponentially. In 2018 the Louisiana legislature passed Act No. 722, causing a referendum on a constitutional amendment to ban non-unanimous juries. The subsequent statewide campaign to end non-unanimous juries generated significant publicity, in part due to the exposure of the racist origins of the Jim Crow era law. The campaign's success, with the approval by electors at a statewide election on November 6, 2018, likewise received significant local and national coverage. Four months later, the United States Supreme Court took up the constitutionality of non-unanimous jury verdicts when it granted the petition for a writ of certiorari in Ramos v. Louisiana , and the issue continued to generate local and national publicity and attention in the thirteen months during which the Ramos case was pending in the Supreme Court. Recently that media attention increased since the Supreme Court's April 20, 2020 decision declaring non-unanimous jury verdicts unconstitutional and this Court's subsequent resolution of a significant number of Ramos -affected cases. Against this backdrop, a process that asks any of the jurors to recall their vote (or the votes of others) will be relying on memories necessarily tainted by subsequent events and we can have no confidence that it will produce an accurate result.
It appears that, through no fault of the defendant, the record was not properly preserved. Defendant objected before trial to the non-unanimous jury verdict and requested polling of the jury. We can have no confidence in the result of an inquiry into individual jurors’ votes almost four years after trial. Therefore I dissent from the majority's recommended process to resolve the issue and would simply remand for a new trial.