On Dec. 2, The Promise of Justice Initiative in New Orleans held a livestream event honoring those who have been imprisoned by non-unanimous juries.
Earlier this year, Evangelisto Ramos’ case went before the Supreme Court as he contested his conviction by a 10-to-2 jury verdict. He had been sentenced to life without parole instead of the mistrial he would likely have received in most other states.
Although the Supreme Court determined in the case of Ramos v. Louisiana that the Sixth Amendment requires a unanimous jury verdict for conviction of a serious crime, more than 1,500 Louisianans are held in prisons today having been convicted by unconstitutional Jim Crow juries.
The Promise of Justice Initiative, a non-profit advocacy group which provides legal support to those affected within Louisiana, asserts that the non-unanimous jury system was designed to facilitate the convictions of Black citizens.
An analysis released by the organization in November concluded that of the 1,500 people still incarcerated in Louisiana due to non-unanimous jury verdicts, 80 percent are Black, and 62 percent are serving life sentences without parole.
The racist law allowing Louisiana juries to send people to prison for life without a consensus of all 12 jurors was intentionally encoded during the 1898 state constitutional convention. Delegates to this convention sought to disenfranchise newly empowered Black people and “establish the supremacy of the white race in the state to the extent to which it could be legally and constitutionally done,” according to an excerpt of the proceedings cited by the New Orleans Advocate.
On Dec. 2, the issue of non-unanimous juries went before the Supreme Court once more to determine whether Louisiana would be required to apply the Ramos decision retroactively and remedy the injustice suffered by these prisoners. The same day, The Promise of Justice Initiative livestreamed a “Say Their Names” event in which various speakers read the names of the people still imprisoned by Jim Crow juries. The reading lasted two hours.
A commenter wrote, “Thank you all for the hard work y’all are doing to right the wrongs that have been done to the wrongfully convicted.” During the livestream, a memorial made from placards with each person’s printed name was constructed by Paper Monuments, a New Orleans based public art and history project. The livestream’s comment section was quickly filled with the names of prisoners, calls for their freedom, and gratitude for the spotlight placed on this injustice.
“This has been a very long road for so many people — people that have been engaged in this fight for 20, 30, 40 years and there’s people that have been waiting on justice for just as long,” remarked Bruce Reilly with Voice of the Experienced, an organization of the formerly incarcerated and their families and allies to win full human and civil justice.
As the prisoners affected by these unconstitutional juries await a verdict from the Supreme Court, they must not be alone in this struggle. New trials for all of those convicted by non-unanimous juries would be a step towards righting the injustices they have suffered. A victory in this struggle would be a step towards abolishing the racist, for-profit prison system.
When sharing their new petition, the Promise of Justice Initiative conveyed the gravity of the situation: “This week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over whether Louisiana will be required to remedy the injuries caused by Jim Crow juries. More than 1,500 lives hang in the balance. No matter the outcome, we won’t let the people harmed by this injustice be forgotten.”
Add your name here to tell Louisiana officials to restore justice to all.
