Cardell Hayes manslaughter conviction of Will Smith overturned by Supreme Court (1 Viewer)

I moved to Colorado and it's way better here, for me. I would love to move back home but the economy and politics don't allow it. Where did you live that had a worse sense of human? And what does that mean.

Places where many people who would not give you the time of day. NYC, SF, Philadelphia. Many nice people, but many not so nice. Louisiana has a lot of nice people. There are many problems, I will be the first to admit that, but the people are really nice.

I actually like Colorado a lot. I really wanted to Diss your new home, but that is a pretty nice state. Never lived there, been there many time. You got me, it is, in many ways better than LA. Still not moving there, but it is a very nice state. I was just thinking after my previous post, where would I actually want to live that is maybe better than LA? CO, UT, WY and Southern ID were on the list.
 
Last edited:
One of my friends growing up was in the car behind Will Smith. That dude Murdered him in cold blood. Damn shame

RIP Will Smith
 
One of my friends growing up was in the car behind Will Smith. That dude Murdered him in cold blood. Damn shame

RIP Will Smith
I thought Cardell's car was the one behind Will's?


"Hayes was sentenced to 25 years on the manslaughter count and 15 years on the attempted manslaughter count, with the terms to run concurrently. He could have received 40 years on the first and an additional 20 on the second."

Now, he's already served almost 5 years on this 25 concurrent. Certainly any plea the DA might entertain wouldn't allow for 5 years being time served, will it? THAT would not be justice. Oh, there is nothing uncomplicated about this case.
 
The SCOTUS typically errs on the side of liberty and justice regardless of political leanings of the court, so this ruling isn't surprising. I wouldn't be surprised if Williams lets this go, though. This trial would be a political landmine for him. He's a 180 from Cannizzaro, who prosecuted Hayes originally. Williams has a lot more on his mind. Also, it's gonna be difficult to find a potential 12-0 jury pool on this case. There's a lot of people in New Orleans who want Hayes out, or who think he has served enough time.

FWIW from what I know of the case I'd vote to convict and I'm pretty strict on the whole "innocent til proven guilty" thing.
 
Now, I could be wrong, but this sounds, er, vaguely political. A man is dead, a wife was shot. Two kids lost a dad and could have lost their mom, too. Let's not forget that by drawing political lines here and obfuscating the underlying facts.

Well you can't expect him to miss the chance to dance on a man's grave just so he can push his politics in a politics free zone, can you?
 
Can people please move the political discussion to somewhere else? I'm more interested in what is going to happen to Hayes going forward. Will he be re-tried or re-convicted for this? I'm not sure what kind of precedence this sets.
 
Are we surprised? I am not going to say anything more! DONE.

Have you read the decision it was based on? In April (2020) the Court decided Ramos v. Louisiana, and ruled 6-3 with Gorsuch (who wrote the opinion), Roberts, and Kavanaugh joining RGB, Breyer, and Sotomayor, that Louisiana's "10-2" jury conviction rule was unconstitutional because jury verdicts must be unanimous. The rationale for this is that at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, trial by jury was understood to mean that the verdict must be unanimous. A non-unanimous (or "hung") jury verdict is not a proper final verdict - it is a mistrial. The Court also concluded that a 1972 case (Apodaca) had already ruled non-unanimous jury laws unconstitutional.

From the opinion:

One of these requirements [of a proper jury verdict] was unanimity. Wherever we might look to determine what the term “trial by an impartial jury trial” meant at the time of the Sixth Amendment’s adoption—whether it’s the common law, state practices in the founding era, or opinions and treatises written soon afterward—the answer is unmistakable. A jury must reach a unanimous verdict in order to convict. The requirement of juror unanimity emerged in 14th century England and was soon accepted as a vital right protected by the common law. As Blackstone explained, no person could be found guilty of a serious crime unless “the truth of every accusation . . . should . . . be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbors, indifferently chosen, and superior to all suspicion.” A “‘verdict, taken from eleven, was no verdict’” at all.

This same rule applied in the young American States. Six State Constitutions explicitly required unanimity. Another four preserved the right to a jury trial in more general terms. But the variations did not matter much; consistent with the common law, state courts appeared to regard unanimity as an essential feature of the jury trial. It was against this backdrop that James Madison drafted and the States ratified the Sixth Amendment in 1791. By that time, unanimous verdicts had been required for about 400 years.


The opinion describes that Louisiana's 10-2 jury rule was originated in 1898, when the Jim Crow era in the South truly solidified, based on Louisiana lawmakers' concerns that African American jurors would acquit African American defendants based solely on their race. So the 10-2 rule would mean that as long as there weren't more than two African Americans on the jury, the prosecutor could still get a conviction. Think about what that means: the rule was aimed solely at convictions for Black defendants. It had no relevance to white defendants.

So I'm curious what the basis of your criticism is. If you think the Court was wrong to overturn a rule borne out of institutional racism at the end of the 19th Century, in one of America's darkest legal eras, aimed solely to aid in the conviction of Black defendants that contradicted a centuries-old element of what makes a proper jury trial (as understood by the framers of the Constitution), you're going to have to say why.
 
Last edited:
Have you read the decision it was based on? In April (2020) the Court decided Ramos v. Louisiana, and ruled 6-3 with Gorsuch (who wrote the opinion) and Roberts joining RGB, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor, that Louisiana's "10-2" jury conviction rule was unconstitutional because jury verdicts must be unanimous. The rationale for this is that at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, trial by jury was understood to mean that the verdict must be unanimous. A non-unanimous (or "hung") jury verdict is not a proper final verdict - it is a mistrial. The Court also concluded that a 1972 case (Apodaca) had already ruled non-unanimous jury laws unconstitutional.

From the opinion:




The opinion describes that Louisiana's 10-2 jury rule was originated in 1898, when the Jim Crow era in the South truly solidified, based on Louisiana lawmakers' concerns that African American jurors would acquit African American defendants based solely on their race. So the 10-2 rule would mean that as long as there weren't more than two African Americans on the jury, the prosecutor could still get a conviction. Think about what that means: the rule was aimed solely at convictions for Black defendants. It had no relevance to white defendants.

So I'm curious what the basis of your criticism is. If you think the Court was wrong to overturn a rule borne out of institutional racism at the end of the 19th Century, in one of America's darkest legal eras, aimed solely to aid in the conviction of Black defendants that contradicted a centuries-old element of what makes a proper jury trial (as understood by the framers of the Constitution), you're going to have to say why.

Kavanaugh was in the majority. Kagan was in the dissent.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account on our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Users who are viewing this thread

    Back
    Top Bottom