Tag Archives: Ramos v. Louisiana
|
SCOTUS Opinion: Court Closes Retroactivity Loophole For Criminal Procedure Decisions
Normally, new rules of criminal procedure do not apply retroactively. However, in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989), the Court made an exception for “watershed” rule changes. Since then, however, the Court had never found a rule change that passed muster. In Edwards v. Vannoy, Thedrick Edwards was found guilty of certain felonies by non-unanimous juries in state court, ... Read More
|
SCOTUS Opinion: Court Abolishes Non-Unanimous Criminal Convictions
The Supreme Court had previously ruled in Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972), that the Sixth Amendment did not forbid non-unanimous verdicts in state criminal trials. Today, only Louisiana and Oregon still permit non-unanimous convictions. In Ramos v. Louisiana, a 6-3 majority of the Court, in an opinion by Justice Gorsuch, discarded that precedent and held that the Sixth ... Read More