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2 

RAMOS v. LOUISIANA 

Opinion of the Court 

their origins are clear.  Louisiana first endorsed nonunani-
mous verdicts for serious crimes at a constitutional conven-
tion  in  1898.  According  to  one  committee  chairman,  the 
avowed purpose of that convention was to “establish the su-
premacy of the white race,” and the resulting document in-
cluded  many  of  the  trappings  of  the  Jim  Crow  era:  a  poll
tax, a combined literacy and property ownership test, and a
grandfather  clause  that  in  practice  exempted  white  resi-
dents from the most onerous of these requirements.1 

Nor was it only the prospect of African-Americans voting
that concerned the delegates.  Just a week before the con-
vention, the U. S. Senate passed a resolution calling for an 
investigation into whether Louisiana was systemically ex-
cluding African-Americans from juries.2  Seeking to avoid 
unwanted  national  attention,  and  aware  that  this  Court 
would  strike  down  any  policy  of  overt  discrimination
against African-American jurors as a violation of the Four-
teenth  Amendment,3  the  delegates  sought  to  undermine 
African-American  participation  on  juries  in  another  way.
With a careful eye on racial demographics, the convention
delegates sculpted a “facially race-neutral” rule permitting
10-to-2 verdicts in order “to ensure that African-American 
juror service would be meaningless.”4 

Adopted in the 1930s, Oregon’s rule permitting nonunan-
imous verdicts can be similarly traced to the rise of the Ku 
Klux Klan and efforts to dilute “the influence of racial, eth-
nic, and religious minorities on Oregon juries.”5  In fact, no 
—————— 

1 Official Journal of the Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention 
of the State of Louisiana 374 (H. Hearsey ed. 1898); Eaton, The Suffrage 
Clause in the New Constitution of Louisiana, 13 Harv. L. Rev. 279, 286– 
287 (1899); Louisiana v. United States, 380 U. S. 145, 151–153 (1965). 

2 See 31 Cong. Rec. 1019 (1898). 
3 Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 310 (1880). 
4 State v. Maxie, No. 13–CR–72522 (La. 11th Jud. Dist., Oct. 11, 2018),
App.  56–57;  see  also  Frampton,  The  Jim  Crow  Jury,  71  Vand.  L. Rev.
1593 (2018). 

5 State v. Williams, No. 15–CR–58698 (C. C. Ore., Dec. 15, 2016), App.