LEGAL BRIEF FORMAT
1.
Name of Case: Ramos
v. Louisiana
2.
Legal Citation:
Ramos v. Louisiana 2016–1199 (La. App. 4 Cir. 11/2/17), 231 so. 3d 44.
3.
Parties: Ramos v. Louisiana
4.
Facts of Case:
A. A.
Eight of the twelve jurors, after deliberation, decided that perhaps the
prosecutors had proved their argument toward Ramos beyond a shadow of a doubt,
whereas two jurors came to the opposite conclusion.
B. Evangelista
Ramos has been charged with third-degree murder and has claimed his right to a
jury trial by court.
C. Under
Louisiana's majority jury verdict rule, approval of only ten jurors is
necessary to award a conviction.
D. Ramos was sentenced to life imprisonment, no
probation.
5.
Issue (in question format-Whether….):
Should the Fourteenth Amendment
completely implement the Sixth Amendment assurance against Governments of a
guilty verdict?
6.
Answer:
Justice Gorsuch,
writing for the same majority, clarified how the case-law of the Court came in
require Oregon and Louisiana to require non-unanimous jury verdicts, explaining
the divided views on consensus in those cases.
7.
Ruling (in favor of):
In the judgment, Justice Clarence
Thomas submitted another opinion than concurred. From the outset, Justice
Thomas acknowledged that immunity from non-unanimous jury verdicts, and would
thus address the problem there. He will also argue that a unanimous decision in
favor of a conviction in federal court, but would conclude that it is applied
against the States by the Rights or Immunities Clause.
8.
The reasoning of Court:
The Court concluded that the
slippery slope had gone not far enough. The opinion of Justice Blackmun for the
Court, based on a series of observational research demonstrating issues with
smaller juries, found that Georgia's law requiring five-person criminal juries
violated the rights of the accused in the Sixth Amendment. Although intervening
in the decision, Justice Powell, along with two other judges, reiterated that
he did not agree that the Fourteenth Amendment placed precisely the same jury
conditions on states as the Sixth Amendment applied to the government.
9.
Comments (your personal opinion of the outcome –was it
fair?):
According to my suggestion, Justice
Gorsuch, again speaking for the plurality, dismissed Louisiana’s claims in
support of non-unanimous jury verdicts, finding that the drafting history of
the Sixth Amendment is at best unclear, that the logic of the Apodaca plurality
was "skimpy" and, most significantly, that the Apodaca plurality
"subjected to its functionalist evaluation the ancient assurance of a
conclusive judge's ruling.
Get Free Quote!
307 Experts Online