Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Monday, April 20, 2020
Supreme Court says unanimous jury verdicts required in state criminal trials for serious offenses
The Supreme Court said Monday
that unanimous jury verdicts are required in state criminal trials for
serious offenses, handing a victory to criminal defendants including
petitioner Evangelisto Ramos, who was convicted of murder in Louisiana
on a 10-2 vote. Ramos
argued that Louisiana's non-unanimous jury provision violated his
federal constitutional right to trial by jury and that the law had
racist roots meant to diminish the votes of minority jurors. Justice Neil Gorsuch penned the opinion and was joined in key parts by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Brett Kavanaugh.
"We took this case to decide whether the Sixth Amendment right to a 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," Gorsuch wrote.
"One of these requirements was unanimity," he said, "a jury must reach a unanimous verdict in order to convict."
"The answer is unmistakable," he said.
Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in the judgment on narrower grounds, whereas Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan joined Justice Samuel Alito's dissent...MORE
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