Portland observer., February 03, 2016, Page Page 4, Image 4

Page 4
February 3, 2016
Non-unanimous Verdicts Steeped in Racist Past
Operating the criminal courts of to-
day based on the racist and xenophobic
attitudes of nearly a century ago would
strike many Oregonians as an aberration.
Yet Oregon is almost alone in the United
States in continuing a practice designed
to silence the voices of those considered
suspect due to race, religion, or national
origin. Our state allows juries in felony
cases to reach a verdict without reaching
a unanimous decision. As long as at least
10 out of 12 jurors agree, a defendant
may be found guilty or not guilty over
the objections of the dissenting jurors.
The murky origins of this law are
found in the maelstrom of anti-Semitic,
anti-Catholic, and anti-“Okie” migrant
Pursuing Justice
by
b obbin s ingh
feeling coupled with a fear of gangster-
ism that arose in Oregon in the 1930s.
A newspaper of the time, The Morning
Oregonian, supported the ballot measure
to introduce non-unanimous juries, writ-
ing of the, “vast immigration into Amer-
ica from southern and eastern Europe,
of people untrained in the jury system.”
Enough Oregonians were convinced that
these immigrants could not be relied on
to get the “right” verdict to result in the
passing of the measure in 1934.
Oregon is the only state, apart from
Louisiana, that allows non-unanimous
jury verdicts in felony cases. Louisiana’s
very similar law was designed to convict
more people – especially poor blacks – to
provide a larger labor force for the state’s
privately-run, for-proit prison. It was
put in place to address plantation owners’
struggles to ind an alternative to slave
labor in the years after emancipation.
Despite their laws, efforts to overturn
these laws by appeal to the U.S. Supreme
Court over the past 80 years have so
far failed. While the Sixth Amendment
doesn’t explicitly conirm the right to in-
sist on a unanimous decision by juries,
the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case that
arose in Oregon, interpreted it to mean
that the right does exist when it comes
to federal trials. However, the Court held
this aspect does not carry over to states.
Yet almost all states require felony con-
victions based on unanimous jury deci-
sions, with only Oregon and Louisiana
denying their defendants this right.
It matters if Oregon is almost alone in
allowing felony convictions based on the
decisions of non-unanimous juries. Re-
search on how juries deliberate and reach
a inal decision shows non-unanimous
juries can mean less thorough analysis
of the facts by jurors, less deliberation,
and reaching quicker and more incorrect
verdicts. The process of having to con-
vince all members of the jury of a par-
ticular verdict seems to have a protective
effect against wrong decisions. Under a
unanimous system, dissenting jurors en-
courage a vigorous debate in pursuit of
agreement that supports the proper func-
tioning of our criminal justice system.
Wrongful convictions mean the uncon-
scionable loss of liberty by those so-con-
victed, suffering for their families, and
freedom for the real guilty party to com-
mit further crimes. A wrongful verdict of
not guilty sees a criminal avoid jail and
denies solace to the victim. A speedy re-
sult that is the wrong result is no good
to any of us. By allowing non-unani-
mous verdicts, it is possible in my view
for people from minority populations to
serve on a jury and then have their views
and experience discounted.
Oregon’s shameful history of racism
and bigotry is well known and undis-
puted. We must reexamine this ugly ves-
tige of our past, and decide if we want to
keep a law that was enacted almost no-
where else in our country to silence the
voices of those deemed “other” and that
continues today to risk more incorrect
verdicts from our juries.
Bobbin Singh is the executive direc-
tor of Oregon Justice Resource Center, a
Portland-based nonproit that promotes
civil rights and dismantling systemic
discrimination in the administration of
justice by providing legal services, train-
ing future lawyers, and educating our
community on civil liberties issues. His
column “Pursuing Justice” will appear
regularly in the Portland Observer.