A Louisiana man whose conviction was overturned in a Supreme Court ruling against split juries is found not guilty at new trial
A Louisiana man whose murder conviction was tossed out after the Supreme Court ruled that verdicts for serious crimes must be unanimous has been found not guilty at his second trial.
The New Orleans jury's verdict that exonerated Evangelisto Ramos, 50, on Wednesday was unanimous.
Jubilant defense attorney Sarah Chervinsky said the verdict, which was reached after less than four hours of deliberation, was another repudiation of a Jim Crow-era system that was designed to maintain white supremacy in Louisiana.
“This verdict cements Evangelisto Ramos’ legacy, not only for ending unconstitutional Jim Crow juries but also as a symbol for the countless others who have been wrongfully convicted by an unjust system from a bygone era,” Chervinsky told reporters.
In an interview Thursday en route to pick up Ramos from the Orleans Justice Center, Chervinsky said he has been behind bars continuously since he was arrested in February 2015.
"The best way I can describe his reaction after the verdict was that he was finally at peace," she said. "This has been a long and grueling journey."
Ramos was born in Honduras and spent most of his adult life in New Orleans. "He's been in touch with his family in both places and has been talking about what he plans to do with the rest of his life," Chervinsky said.
Ramos was convicted in 2016 of second-degree murder in the killing two years earlier of a woman whose body was found dumped in a municipal trash can.
The jury in Ramos' first trial was divided 10-2, and he was sentenced to life in prison. At the time, that would have resulted in a mistrial in 48 other states outside Louisiana and Oregon.
Ramos' lawyers took his case to the Supreme Court, which ruled by a 6-3 vote in 2020 that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial requires unanimous verdicts.
The ruling came two years after Louisiana changed its law to require unanimous verdicts. But while it outlawed nonunanimous verdicts in the state, the new law did not reverse previous split-jury convictions like Ramos'.
So Ramos remained behind bars awaiting a new trial, Chervinsky said.
Ramos' second trial concluded Wednesday after three days of testimony, with all 12 jurors in agreement that Orleans Parish prosecutors failed to prove that he stabbed Trenice Fedison to death in 2014, Chervinsky said.
CORRECTION (March 9, 2023, 3:55 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated when Evangelisto Ramos was arrested. It was 2015, not 2014.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
