Prisoners convicted by non-unanimous juries deserve retroactive case reviews

Editor’s note: The Free Press receives scores of letters from inmates. We have not fact checked any claims made by inmates and cannot confirm or deny the content of their letters. We provide them a way to reach out.

Dear Editor;

After reading the myriad of news articles regarding the racist rants of the recently resigned Lafayette Judge Michelle Odinet. I looked for a perspective that defined how I truly felt.

Let me make it clear that what this public official said, done, and planned was diabolically evil and inheritable wrong. As a sitting judicial administrator, it is her responsibility to mediate between antagonists and render fair, impartial, and unbiased judgment that reflects fairness and equity to those who come before her bench.

The assumption that this judge was in the privacy of her home does not merit any presumption of innocence. Matter-of-factually, we expect our elected servants to truly be the egalitarians both abroad and at home because for her to temporarily remove her judge’s robe of righteousness and don her hood of odiousness, simply revealed that this judge was merely a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Judge Odinet’s remarks were simply a deep south perception of the superiority of the White race and the subjugation of blacks as a lower and inferior class of society. This paradigm is ever-present in the south and is akin to the implementation of the non-unanimous jury rule in the Louisiana court system. The practice has been ruled as unconstitutional because it unfairly allowed juries to find guilt while reasonable doubt still existed in the minds of two of the remaining jurors.

The Louisiana Supreme Court said concerning Judge Michelle Odinet, that the court “will not tolerate racism in any form. The general consensus of the local people, the news forums, as well as colleagues is, for the good of the court and the people she purports to serve, she should resign. Governor John Bel Edwards and numerous other officials were part of a groundswell in favor of her resignation.

If the great Supreme Court of Louisiana has taken a staunch stand against racism and the unfair treatment of blacks that reeks the relics of the past humiliation of a disenfranchised people, then the same court should apply that liberal philosophy toward the pending legal question now before them that seeks retroactive application of the law regarding non-unanimous jury verdicts in Louisiana.

In the Baton Rouge Advocate, (12/17/21) in the “Our views section,” it said that “No black defendant can be certain that he/she would get a fair shake before Judge Odinet and previous decisions demand review. The Non-Profit organization “The Promise of Justice Initiative” is arguing the same, that those convicted by non-unanimous juries did not get a fair shake and such decisions demand retroactive review.

In the Advocate’s article, it summed it up by saying, “There’s nothing worse for a poor defendant than facing a court semmingly tilted against them.”

The Louisiana Supreme Court should not salute wrongdoings, it should stand and act accordingly.

Keith Alexander
Inmate, Angloa State Prison