A divided Supreme Court of Louisiana ruled that a ban on nonunanimous jury verdicts will not be applied retroactively, which means up to 1,500 inmates who were convicted by split juries will not get a new trial.
The ruling (pdf) on Oct. 21 in State of Louisiana v. Reddick, court file 2021-KP-01893, comes out of the appeal of Reginald Reddick, who challenged his 10–2 conviction for a 1993 second-degree murder after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that nonunanimous criminal jury verdicts were unconstitutional.
