Monday, January 10, 2011

Jeff Fisher at it Again

Heads up....a petition for cert is pending in the case of Barbour v. State of Louisiana. Petitioner was convicted of attempted second degree murder by a less than unanimous jury. On behalf of the petitioner, Jeff Fisher seeks to have the court revisit its decision in Apocada v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972) which held that state criminal convictions are not required by the U.S. Constitution to be unanimous. Jeff's petition simply states the issue as follows: "Whether the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, allows a criminal conviction based on a nonunanimous jury verdict." Jeff is joined by two powerful amici; the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the American Bar Association. It is time that this anomaly be corrected.

Jeff after you finish this issue, how about joining me in taking on the lack of a reasonable doubt instruction (and a prohibition on arguing its meaning) in the Seventh Circuit?

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