Johnson v. Louisiana

Appellant

Frank Johnson

Appellee

State of Louisiana

Appellant's Claim

Louisiana's constitutional provisions, which allowed less-than-unanimous guilty verdicts in criminal cases, violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Chief Lawyer for Appellant

Richard A. Buckley

Chief Lawyer for Appellee

Louise Korns

Justices for the Court

Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, Byron R. White (writing for the Court)

Justices Dissenting

William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Potter Stewart

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

22 May 1972

Decision

The reasonable doubt standard contained in the Due Process Clause of the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment was not violated by nonunanimous jury verdicts.

Related Cases

• Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581 (1900).
• Jordan v. Massachusetts, 225 U.S. 167 (1912).
• Andres v. United States, 333 U.S. 740 (1948).
• Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968).
• Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972).

Further Readings

• Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Northwestern University. Oyez, oyez, oyez-A U.S. Supreme Court Database. http://court.it-services.nwu.edu/oyez/cases