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1. Important op-ed in @Oregonian today by Calvin Duncan, a formerly incarcerated person and first-year law student at @lewisandclark Law School.
He argues Oregon AG @EllenRosenblum should stop blocking relief for people convicted by nonunanimous juries. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
He argues Oregon AG @EllenRosenblum should stop blocking relief for people convicted by nonunanimous juries. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
2. Calvin knows a ton about nonunanimous juries. While incarcerated at Angola Prison and after his release, he championed the issue. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
3. Finally in 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case questioning their constitutionality. And earlier this year, the Supreme Court struck nonunanimous juries down. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
4. Last year, @adamliptak, the Supreme Court Reporter for the @nytimes wrote a profile of Calvin and his years-long quest for justice. It was fittingly entitled, “A Relentless Jailhouse Lawyer Propels a Case to the Supreme Court.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/us/politics/supreme-court-nonunanimous-juries.html
4. When Calvin and his team won in the Supreme Court this year, the justices described the nonunanimous jury rule –unique to Oregon & Louisiana – as grounded in racism and bigotry. In Oregon, the Court said, nonunanimous juries could be “traced to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.”
5. And, according to the Supreme Court, it wasn’t merely that nonunanimous juries were monuments to past racism. The justices also said that the *present day effect* of nonunanimous juries was racist – because nonunanimous juries dilute the voices of racial minorities on juries.
6. And so it is particularly galling that Oregon Attorney General @EllenRosenblum – an older upper-class white woman who likes to depict herself as *woke – is trying so hard to narrow the impact of the Supreme Court ruling. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
7. Basically, @EllenRosenblum is taking the position that the Supreme Court case striking down nonunanimous juries shouldn’t apply to older cases. People with newer cases get a new trial, but in Rosenblum’s view, people with older cases are out of luck. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
8. To put it differently, @EllenRosenblum is saying that it’s too much trouble to give these people new trials, so we should all just accept the systemic racism that infected their cases. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
9. But as Justice Gorsuch – of all people! – pointed out in the Supreme Court opinion, @EllenRosenblum’s willingness to tolerate systemic racism, her view that addressing it is too hard, is precisely what allows systemic racism to persist. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
10. And as #blacklivesmatter 
teaches us, @EllenRosenblum’s stance is the same attitude that allows Confederate monuments to remain standing – an unwillingness of white people to do the hard work of dismantling racist systems/institutions. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
teaches us, @EllenRosenblum’s stance is the same attitude that allows Confederate monuments to remain standing – an unwillingness of white people to do the hard work of dismantling racist systems/institutions. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
11. In any event, I encourage everyone to read Calvin’s piece. It is excellent. And I urge you to interrogate Democrats like Oregon’s Attorney General who talk the anti-racist talk, while fighting tooth and nail to preserve racist systems. https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2020/08/opinion-rosenblum-must-end-persisting-injustice-of-nonunanimous-juries.html
