Criminal Defense in Louisiana: the early file behind bond paperwork, custody-status records, and real next steps

In June 2020, the United States Supreme Court decided Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83 (2020), and in doing so delivered a ruling that would reverberate through Louisiana courtrooms more than anywhere else in the United States. At issue was Louisiana's century-old practice of allowing non-unanimous jury verdicts in felony cases — a practice with roots in post-Reconstruction amendments to the Louisiana constitution, originally designed to dilute the influence of Black jurors on juries. For generations, Louisiana had convicted defendants of serious felonies on 10-2 or 11-1 jury votes, meaning a defendant could be sentenced to years in prison even though one or two jurors believed the prosecution had failed to prove its case. In Ramos, the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment's right to trial by jury requires unanimity for felony convictions, and that Louisiana's non-unanimous verdict scheme was unconstitutional. The ruling did not undo every non-unanimous conviction automatically — the Supreme Court held in Edwards v. Vannoy, 593 U.S. 554 (2021), that Ramos does not apply retroactively on federal habeas review — but the Louisiana Supreme Court and courts of appeals have grappled extensively with applications of Ramos to state post-conviction proceedings. The Ramos decision is the defining Louisiana criminal law development of the twenty-first century, and its legacy shapes how Louisiana defense attorneys think about jury selection, deliberation, and post-conviction relief to this day.

Louisiana's habitual offender statute, La. R.S. 15:529.1, operates with a severity that surprises attorneys from other states. Under § 15:529.1, a defendant convicted of a felony who has a prior felony conviction faces dramatically enhanced sentencing exposure based purely on their prior record. A second felony offense carries one and one-half to two times the maximum sentence of the current offense. A third felony offense carries imprisonment at hard labor for up to life. A fourth or subsequent felony offense (where the current or any prior felony is a "crime of violence" or a controlled dangerous substance offense) carries a mandatory minimum of twenty years and a maximum of natural life without the possibility of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence. The habitual offender procedure is filed by the district attorney after conviction — the prosecution charges the defendant with being a habitual offender, alleges the prior convictions, and the defendant either admits the prior convictions or demands a hearing. The Louisiana Supreme Court in State v. Johnson, 709 So.2d 672 (La. 1998), recognized that excessively punitive habitual offender sentences can violate the Eighth Amendment and established a procedure for downward departure from mandatory minimums in cases involving a substantial showing of excessiveness — but such departures are rare and require extraordinary circumstances.