Appellate Circuit Split on Whether People with Jim Crow Jury Convictions Should Get Any Remedy

New Orleans, La – A circuit split has developed in Louisiana’s appellate courts about whether men and women convicted with split verdicts should get a remedy. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court found non-unanimous jury verdicts—known a Jim Crow jury verdicts—unconstitutional. Since then, more than 1,000 men and women who had final convictions on the day of the decision have filed applications seeking a remedy under the U.S. Supreme Court decision.

“To date, the Louisiana Supreme Court has not taken cases, even though this issue impacts about 1,500 men and women in Louisiana’s prisons and their families,” Jamila Johnson, Deputy Director at Promise of Justice Initiative, said. “Each day our office is flooded with questions about why the Court hasn’t acted.”

The Louisiana Supreme Court’s silence on this issue may be short lived, as a circuit split developed yesterday in the appellate courts. Right after the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal reversed the decision of a St. Bernard Parish judge and found Ramos v. Louisiana retroactively applicable to cases with final convictions, the Louisiana Third Circuit overturned a Lake Charles trial judge who had found in favor of retroactivity.

“The Melendez case out of the Fourth Circuit and the Nelson case out of the Third Circuit ask Louisiana what kind of state it is going to be. The Fourth Circuit chooses for Louisiana to be a state that takes responsibility for its mistakes and reckons with its racial history. The Third Circuit chose to ignore those wrongs and continue incarcerating primarily Black men with these unconstitutional convictions,” said Hardell Ward, Senior Attorney at Promise of Justice Initiative and counsel for Melendez and Nelson.

Consistently two justices have been asking for the court to hear a case. Two more justices would need to agree before the court can hear arguments on retroactivity.

“Promise of Justice Initiative has been fighting to end this racist practice since our founding in 2012. It is past time for the Court to heal our state and close the book on this shameful history,” said Mercedes Montagnes, Executive Director at Promise of Justice Initiative.