High court won’t make unanimous jury requirement retroactive

WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court ruled Monday that prisoners who were convicted by non-unanimous juries before the high court barred the practice a year ago don t need to be retried.

The justices ruled 6-3 along conservative-liberal lines that prisoners whose cases had concluded before the justices 2020 ruling shouldn t benefit from it. The decision affects prisoners who were convicted in Louisiana and Oregon as well as the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, the few places that had allowed criminal convictions based on divided jury votes.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the conservative majority that the court s well-settled retroactivity doctrine led to the conclusion that the decision doesn t apply retroactively. The decision tracks the Court s many longstanding precedents on retroactivity, he wrote.

In a dissent joined by her two liberal colleagues, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that as a result of the ruling, For the first time in many decades … those convicted under rules found not to produce fair and reliable verdicts will be left without recourse in federal courts.

via apnews.com