The Root; Published By Jessica Washington
Photo: Isabella Pino (Getty Images)
As Evangelisto Ramos walked out of the courthouse a free man, he was keenly aware that his acquittal was about far more than just him. In 2020, Ramos, a Black Honduran immigrant, saw his case go all of the way to the Supreme Court. And sorry if this is a spoiler alert: he won.
In 2014, Ramos was convicted of second-degree murder in a 10-2 jury conviction, which, had he been in almost any other state (except Oregon), would have meant that he walked. But because Louisiana law allowed for non-unanimous jury convictions, he was sentenced to life. Ramos appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, which in the landmark Ramos v. Louisiana, declared that non-unanimous jury convictions like Ramos for serious crimes were unconstitutional.
The court called their allowance a racist holdover from the Jim Crow era, arguing that states adopted non-unanimous jury decisions as a way to get around laws banning jury discrimination. Ramos won the right to a new trial at the Supreme Court and was unanimously acquitted of all charges by a new jury in March. But like we said, this is about a lot more than just one man.
The question now is whether the hundreds of other people locked up by non-unanimous juries will be granted a new trial. Read more
