Louisiana Republicans reject bill that would address split jury verdicts, a Jim Crow-era practice
May 21, 2025
A Louisiana bill that would have carved out a path for incarcerated people convicted by now-banned split juries to ask for a new trial has failed. The GOP-dominated state Senate voted against the bill along party lines. The bill would have added non-unanimous jury verdicts to a list of claims for which an inmate can seek a retrial. An estimated 1,000 people behind bars in the Deep South state were convicted by non-unanimous juries, a practice rooted in racism from the era of “Jim Crow” laws and deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020.
