Note by Nathalie M. Walker-Dittman
A corporate defendant and its president were jointly charged in two counts with exhibition of obscene motion pictures in violation of a Louisiana obscenity statute. On both counts, the six-person jury unanimously convicted the corporate defendant, and by a vote of five to one convicted the president. Defendants appealed, claiming that conviction for a nonpetty offense by a nonunanimous six-person jury violated the right to trial by jury guaranteed by the sixth and fourteenth amendments. The convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court of Louisiana. The United States Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of the corporation, reversed the conviction of the president, remanded, and held that conviction by a nonunanimous six-person jury in a state criminal trial for a nonpetty offense deprives an accused of his constitutional right to trial by jury. Burch v. Louisiana, 441 U.S. 130 (1979).
About the Author
Nathalie M. Walker-Dittman.
Citation
54 Tul. L. Rev. 1178 (1980)