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| Angela Allen-Bell |
Allen-Bell, a professor at Southern University Law Center, had been one of the leading advocates for the change, under which 12-member juries would once again have to vote unanimously for a criminal conviction. A Jim Crow-era relic, allowing juries to vote 10-2 or 11-1 for a conviction was widely seen as a way to tip the scales against Black defendants after Congress barred the practice of excluding Black people from juries in 1875.
"We all left that night feeling that we had actually changed the course of history," Allen-Bell recalled.
Once Louisiana's referendum was approved, Oregon was left as the only remaining state in the country to allow nonunanimous jury verdicts in criminal cases. That changed in 2020 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared such verdicts unconstitutional.
Following the ruling, Oregon's Supreme Court decided to apply the high court's ruling retroactively, saying that anyone convicted by a nonunanimous jury would be able to file for post-conviction relief and get a new trial. The Louisiana State Legislature, however, has been unwilling to offer the same relief for those still serving prison sentences after being convicted nonunanimously.
After Louisiana eliminated nonunanimous juries, Allen-Bell realized there was more work to be done. She said she started hearing from attorneys saying there was still a problem: while it was great that unanimous verdicts were now a requirement, juries were still mostly white.
"And I thought, what is wrong with the state of Louisiana that we cannot seem to get representation of people of color in the jury box?" Allen-Bell said.
The question led her to write three books — two of which were released this summer, with the third expected next month — that look at how Louisiana's criminal justice system has been "a weapon against people of color," as she puts it, and why having diverse, unanimous juries is an important element in ensuring fair trials.
"I started the book project really thinking that I was going to write an advocacy book to celebrate this tremendous victory," Allen-Bell said, referring to the state eliminating nonunanimous juries. "Then it turned into something much bigger because, as I stepped back to understand the reasoning behind why Black people were not in the jury box, I started seeing a fight that really started in the 1800s."
The first and second books, "Under Indictment: Race, Juries & Justice in Louisiana" and "Diversity in the Jury Box and Beyond," were published this summer. The third book, "The Summons," which is expected to be published in December, was designed as a "how-to" for citizens and attorneys who want to work to change aspects of the legal system.
Allen-Bell recently spoke to Law360 about her books and what she hopes readers will take away from them. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about the first book in the series, "Under Indictment: Race, Juries & Justice in Louisiana."
I describe it as an audit of race and law in the state of Louisiana, but although this is written specifically about Louisiana, this is really not a local conversation because much of what we see in our justice system manifests itself all over the country.
One thing the book tries to get people to understand is that we still have folks in prison in Louisiana who were convicted by nonunanimous juries, and that is the point that I wanted to be sure was understood, because if those folks did not get fair trials — and, according to the Supreme Court, they did not — there should be a remedy.
Oregon was the other state that used nonunanimous juries. Oregon actually fashioned a remedy for its people. Oregon was very honest about the fact that those convictions should not have happened. And unfortunately, when Louisiana's Legislature has had the opportunity to do it, they've been unwilling.
Tell me about the second book, "Diversity in the Jury Box and Beyond." What inspired you to write it?
I wanted to offer some perspectives on how we might improve. The second book starts by exploring the essence of what a jury is. The Sixth Amendment envisions the jury protections for an accused person, but this book takes it another step and asks whether juries also serve a secondary purpose for the citizens who are called in for service. I argue they do. The whole point of Reconstruction was to make sure people of color were now a part of our democracy, and when we think about participating in a democracy, the classic ways for the average person to do that are through the vote or through jury service.
When we did this work of trying to end nonunanimous juries, there was a body of very compelling research on the deliberative process saying that when you have a jury that is unanimous, and you get diverse folks in that jury box, you are more likely to get a reliable outcome. When you add different ages and different races and different classes and different socioeconomic experiences to a deliberation, the deliberations are going to be slower and the deliberations are going to be much more thorough.
What did you find in researching the involvement, or lack thereof, of Black jurors on Louisiana juries?
The research tells us that quite often the person in the jury box that raises questions of reasonable doubt is the person of color. Why? Because they represent the marginalized experience and without that experience in the jury box, it is often unnoticed or overlooked.
When a Black person or a person of color is actually called out for jury service — because there's a very definite finding in the state that most clerks' offices are not really calling people of color out in their proper numbers — if you are lucky enough to be called, there are very committed prosecutors who try to use every question and answer as a way to eliminate people of color. One of the reasons that they've given to strike people, which I cite in the book, is lack of intelligence. Prosecutors say things like, "I want to strike this juror because he seems slow. He doesn't seem to understand." But you don't see that being used to strike white jurors.
And you found these examples in Louisiana court records?
Yes. I was also shocked at the number of people of color who have said to me, "I've lived in the same house for 25 years. I've never been called out for jury duty." So there seems to be a clear underrepresentation of getting folks out.
Tell me about the third book, "The Summons." What was your goal in writing it?
Over the years I have begun to realize that there's a big gap in legal education for attorneys and citizens interested in advocacy work. I've had so many people say, "You should write a book so that I can understand how to do some of the things that you do." So I am training citizens and lawyers on how to become advocates.
The third book is my attempt to advocate for constructive, lawful social change, and I go into some of the things I've done over the years that have worked. For example, to get the nonunanimous jury change, it required the Legislature to actually vote to put it on the ballot and then it required the public to go to the polls. So there is a section that teaches you how that process works if you have to go before the Legislature.
What are some things you hope people take away from your books?
I'm hoping prosecutors will begin to really do some introspection about what happens when you abuse the powers of their offices. When you use race as a basis to exclude folks from jury service or cause someone to be wrongfully convicted, you're playing a role in creating what I call in the book a racist ecosystem — that's how I describe a lot of the courtrooms in Louisiana, because of the conduct of prosecutors who act based on race.
The other thing that I really wish to see is that folks who are distrustful of the justice system — who have reason to be, by the way — will become a part of saying, "I'm not going to sit on the sidelines. I want to build something better."
--Editing by Daniel King.
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