The Louisiana Senate reaffirmed its commitment to Jim Crow-era practices this week by vetoing a bill that would’ve allowed incarcerated people convicted under split jury verdicts to seek a retrial.
According to AP, the bill failed on a 9-26 vote that fell along party lines. The bill was authored by state Sen. Royce Duplessis (D) and would’ve added split jury convictions to the list of claims an incarcerated person could seek a retrial. There are an estimated 1,500 men and women currently incarcerated in Louisiana as a result of split jury convictions, 80 percent of whom are Black.
“If we choose to vote down this bill, we’re saying that justice has an expiration date,” Duplessis told his colleagues during debate over the measure. “We have an opportunity in Louisiana to remove this stain, because right now we are the only ones wearing it.”
Split jury convictions were found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2020, which acknowledged the racist origins of the practice and found it violated defendants’ constitutional rights. At the time of the ruling, the only states that still allowed them were Oregon and Louisiana.
For its part, Oregon’s Supreme Court voted in 2022 to allow the then-400 people incarcerated through split jury convictions to seek a retrial. Conversely, the Louisiana Supreme Court voted to reject retroactively applying the Supreme Court’s decision that same year.
Split jury convictions were a cornerstone of Jim Crow policies and were inherently designed to uphold white supremacy. This isn’t an opinion; split jury convictions were introduced in 1898 in the Louisiana State Constitution, a framework explicitly designed to “reestablish the supremacy of the white race,” after the Civil War.
Split jury convictions in particular were implemented to ensure that even if Black people were on a jury, their voices wouldn’t sway the outcome of a case. This was a multilayered tactic as it allowed Black people to be convicted of felonies under questionable circumstances, which in turn would strip them of their voting rights. These verdicts were and still are used to strip Black people of both their freedom and political power.
Knowing that history, it’s hard not to look at the Louisiana Senate with a significant amount of side-eye. Their arguments against the measure were incredibly shallow, stating that they didn’t want to overburden the courts and district attorneys. They choose not to rectify an explicitly racist, unconstitutional tactic…because of court scheduling.
I would respect it more if they stopped playing in our faces and just said the quiet part out loud.
Those in favor of the bill countered that it wouldn’t automatically allow for a retrial; it simply would’ve provided a pathway for those incarcerated under split jury convictions, and that retrials would be granted under the discretion of the district attorneys. The fact that this move came as the Louisiana House of Representatives passed an anti-DEI bill that was widely viewed by the Black caucus as racist just goes to show how regressive the Louisiana state legislature is across the board.
Making the veto even more egregious is the fact that a recent poll showed that the majority of Louisiana voters were in favor of the measure passing. So this clearly wasn’t about doing what was in the best interest of their constituents. It was about reminding Black people how little their freedom matters to those in power.
Whether it’s 1898 or 2025, the playbook remains the same, and sadly, Louisiana will have to continue wearing this stain.
SEE ALSO:
Trump Administration Targets DEI Initiatives at Colleges
California Teen Spurs Outrage With Racist Promposal
Louisiana Senate Vetoes Retrial Bill For People Convicted By Split Juries
was originally published on
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