The challenge to the Trump administration’s travel ban has been pulled from the Supreme Court docket for now, but the justices still have an opportunity this coming term to confront a high-profile case that raises direct questions about racial or religious animus.
The court has been asked to overturn its own precedent and invalidate a Louisiana law that permits criminal convictions in felony cases where a jury is not unanimous in finding guilt. Only two states — Louisiana and Oregon — employ the non-unanimous jury rule in these cases. The Louisiana law was enacted by white supremacist lawmakers in 1898 in response to the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was supposed to guarantee the right to vote — and thus the right to serve on juries — to blacks.
By allowing convictions in instances where jurors split, these legislators reckoned, they could essentially nullify the votes of the few blacks here and there who would be allowed to serve on juries.
[For more on this story by Andrew Cohen, go to https://www.themarshallproject...a-vestige-of-bigotry]
Photo: Louisiana and Oregon are the only states that permit criminal convictions in felony cases with non-unanimous juries. SPENCER WEINER/LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
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