Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U. S. 356 (1972), was a court case in the U.S. Supreme Court involving the Due Process clause and Equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Louisiana law that allowed less-than unanimous jury verdicts (9 to 12 jurors) to convict persons charged with a felony, does not violate the Due Process clause. This case was argued on a similar basis as Apodaca v. Oregon.
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| - Johnson v. Louisiana (en)
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| - Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U. S. 356 (1972), was a court case in the U.S. Supreme Court involving the Due Process clause and Equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Louisiana law that allowed less-than unanimous jury verdicts (9 to 12 jurors) to convict persons charged with a felony, does not violate the Due Process clause. This case was argued on a similar basis as Apodaca v. Oregon. (en)
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| - Frank Johnson, Petitioner v. Louisiana (en)
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| Dissent
| - Douglas (en)
- Brennan (en)
- Marshall (en)
- Steward (en)
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| - Brennan (en)
- Marshall (en)
- Brennan, Marshall (en)
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| - Burger, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist (en)
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| - Justice Byron White (en)
- Justice William O. Douglas (en)
- Justice Bryon White (en)
- Justice Lewis Powell (en)
- Justice Potter Steward (en)
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| - Frank Johnson, Petitioner v. Louisiana (en)
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| Holding
| - The Louisiana law that allowed a defendant to be convicted of a felon without a unanimous jury does not violate the equal protection clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution for failure to satisfy the reasonable doubt standard. (en)
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| - Johnson v. Louisiana (en)
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| - It therefore seems to me, in accord both with history and precedent, that the Sixth Amendment requires a unanimous jury verdict to convict in a federal criminal trial.
But it is the Fourteenth Amendment, rather than the Sixth, that imposes upon the States the requirement that they provide jury trials to those accused of serious crimes. This Court has said, in cases decided when the intendment of that Amendment was not as clouded by the passage of time, that due process does not require that the States apply the federal jury-trial right with all its gloss. (en)
- The requirement that the verdict of the jury be unanimous, surely as important as these other constitutional requisites, preserves the jury's function in linking law with contemporary society. It provides the simple and effective method endorsed by centuries of experience and history to combat the injuries to the fair administration of justice that can be inflicted by community passion and prejudice. (en)
- We conclude, however, that the Louisiana statutory scheme serves a rational purpose and is not subject to constitutional challenge. (en)
- At that juncture there is no basis for denigrating the vote of so large a majority of the jury or for refusing to accept their decision as being, at least in their minds, beyond a reasonable doubt...Appellant offers no evidence that majority jurors simply ignore the reasonable doubts of their colleagues or otherwise act irresponsibly in casting their votes in favor of conviction, and before we alter our own longstanding perceptions about jury behavior and overturn a considered legislative judgment that unanimity is not essential to reasoned jury verdicts, we must have some basis for doing so other than unsupported assumptions. (en)
- After today's decisions, a man's property may only be taken away by a unanimous jury vote, yet he can be stripped of his liberty by a lesser standard. How can that result be squared with the law of the land as expressed in the settled and traditional requirements of procedural due process? (en)
- Of course, the State's proof could perhaps be regarded as more certain if it had convinced all 12 jurors instead of only nine; it would have been even more compelling if it had been required to convince and had, in fact, convinced 24 or 36 jurors. But the fact remains that nine jurors— a substantial majority of the jury—were convinced by the evidence. In our view disagreement of three jurors does not alone establish reasonable doubt, particularly when such a heavy majority of the jury, after having considered the dissenters' views, remains convinced of guilt. That rational men disagree is not in itself equivalent to a failure of proof by the State, nor does it indicate infidelity to the reasonable-doubt standard. (en)
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