Bloomberg Law mentioned Haynes and Boone, LLP in an article about firm client Roderick Vidau, who was convicted of armed robbery by a nonunanimous jury and whose chances at a new trial hinges on the U.S. Supreme Court case Edwards v. Vannoy.
Mr. Vidau’s counsel includes Haynes and Boone Counsel Iris Gibson, Associates Sally Dahlstrom and Samuel Mallick, and Jamila Johnson with the Promise of Justice Initiative.
Here is an excerpt:
Roderick Vidau turned down a plea deal in 2005 because he never expected a jury of 12 of his peers would convict him of committing armed robbery.
He was right: Only 10 jurors found him guilty, but in Louisiana that was enough to send him to prison for 35 years. He allegedly stole $15.
“I was devastated,” Vidau, now 43, told Bloomberg Law in an interview from Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, La.
Vidau is one of roughly 1,500 people in Louisiana who are incarcerated after guilty verdicts by nonunanimous juries, according to The Promise of Justice Initiative, a Louisiana nonprofit that has been tracking nonunanimous jury incarcerations in that state. The issue has become racially charged, as a disproportionate number of people convicted by nonunanimous juries are Black.
Until recently, just two states—Louisiana and Oregon—had laws allowing people to be convicted by 10-2 or 11-1 juries.
The Supreme Court ruled against the practice in Ramos v. Louisiana in April, holding that it is unconstitutional for people to be convicted by a nonunanimous jury. However, the decision didn’t address whether that finding was retroactive.
That leaves Vidau and others like him in a legal limbo with a ticking clock. Louisiana law gives them one year from the Supreme Court’s decision in Ramos to file paperwork to vacate their convictions, which may result in new trials because prosecutors would have the option to bring each case again.
“It’s important to give these people the trial they would have gotten in 48 other states across the country,” said Sally Dahlstrom, Haynes and Boone associate and counsel for Vidau.
To read the full article, click here.
Vidau’s case was also covered in a recent Vice article. To read the article, click here.