Oregon Supreme Court Is Reviewing 74 Convictions That Could Be Reversed Because the Verdicts Weren’t Unanimous

The review process is expected to take months.

Multnomah Justice Center (Joe Riedl)

The Oregon Supreme Court has begun reviewing 74 criminal appeal cases that may have been affected by yesterday's United States Supreme Court ruling in Ramos v. Louisiana, which effectively banned split-jury convictions.

Presumably, these 74 verdicts resulted from just 10 or 11 jurors voting to convict. "There are expected to be more, but they are not yet identified," says Todd Sprague, spokesman for the Oregon Judicial Department.

Sprague says it isn't as clear how many cases affected by Ramos are in the Court of Appeals, which "currently has more than 2,900 criminal appeals pending at various stages of case processing."

Sprague says his department is working to identify cases where both state prosecutors and public defenders agree that new trials may be warranted.

Following yesterday's ruling, Oregon joined the other 49 states in requiring unanimous jury verdicts for felony convictions.

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