This 45-year-old case explains the “Jim Crow juries” that still haunt Louisiana

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox When a source first explained me about the scenario of Lloyd Gray in late I jotted down these notes two Black jurors a swastika and Gov Jeff Landry That was an oversimplification of a deeply troubling issue but it also got to the heart of a story published this week by ProPublica and Verite News that haunts Louisiana and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future Gray was just in when he was tried in a New Orleans courtroom on a charge of aggravated rape After one day of testimony the jury returned with a - split verdict The white jurors voted guilty and the only two Black jurors not guilty If you re a regular consumer of courtroom dramas you might think a split verdict would mean a mistrial and currently it would But back then in Louisiana where nonunanimous juries were legal it resulted in a life sentence for Gray Covering the criminal justice system in Louisiana often means familiarizing myself with things people in other parts of the country might find shocking For instance countless might be surprised to learn that here for more than years the state allowed people like Gray to be sent to prison for life even though two jurors voted not guilty The only other state to do the same was Oregon In the U S Supreme Court ruled that the practice was unconstitutional and based on an inherently racist law meant to uphold white supremacy but the decision only applied in cases going forward the court left the decision about what to do with those convicted long ago to the states Louisiana refused to reconsider the convictions of more than mostly Black men sent to prison for lengthy sentences by those split-jury verdicts Related Mental illness behind bars The hard lessons of Orleans Parish Reporting here can often be a surreal experience Even when you think you ve reached a level of cynicism that can t be breached something new comes along that shocks your system For me that was the swastika While Gray s former attorney was explaining the ins and outs of his event to me he mentioned that at chosen point someone had drawn the Nazi hate symbol on the cover of Gray s scenario file And sure enough when Gray s attorneys sent me the cover page of his file there it was in the upper right corner a small doodle of a swastika It was hard to contemplate how even as in recent times as the s someone would feel at ease enough to draw such a disgraceful thing on a establishment document without fear of repercussion The district attorney s office does not dispute its existence or that a staff member might have drawn it but it doesn t know who or when The Louisiana Department of Population Safety and Corrections denied our request to interview Gray either by phone or in person so the only way to communicate with him for the story was via his attorneys I provided them with questions and they relayed his responses I needed to know what his life was like before that fateful night in when he was accused of rape He described a happy childhood saying The beauty of it is we were loved Me and my sister my brother we were loved But he also recalled witnessing his mother s mistreatment at a gas station at a young age It opened my eyes to racism at its finest Gray commented Gray s attorneys contend that the swastika along with the two Black jurors voting to acquit among other issues proves that his prosecution was tainted by racial bias and should be enough to at the very least reconsider Gray s sentence At one point the New Orleans District Attorney s Office appeared to agree and proposed a plea deal that would allow for Gray s release In Oregon after the Supreme Court s ruling the state vacated the sentences of everyone convicted by a nonunanimous jury after which prosecutors offered plea deals with reduced sentences that allowed a large number of to walk free But again this is Louisiana Unlike Oregon the state Supreme Court decided not to vacate old split-jury convictions and left it to the Legislature to deal with the issue In turn lawmakers backed by Landry shut off all paths to freedom for people like Gray They not only shot down law allowing for older split-jury verdicts to be reexamined they passed a bill gutting the ability of prosecutors to offer plea deals The Landry administration did not respond to requests for comment The impact of this law played out in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court in late August when the district attorney s office recounted Judge Robin Pittman that the new law prevented it from waiving a missed filing deadline by Gray and as a product it couldn t broker a deal Pittman set a new hearing for Oct at which she will decide if Gray s circumstance in which he demanded for his sentence to be reconsidered can move forward When you re sent to prison with a life sentence they send you here to die Gray notified me through his attorneys After years I m no closer to freedom than the day I walked into this place Read more about this topic Welcome to Republicanistan The GOP s Jim Crow pseudo-democracy Birth of a nation Jim Crow Republicans seek to repeat America s dark history Trump s plan to dismantle DEI on day one is a colorblind path to Jim Crow The post This -year-old event explains the Jim Crow juries that still haunt Louisiana appeared first on Salon com