Brandon Jackson, a Louisiana man who was in prison for more than 25 years on a non-unanimous jury verdict, was released on parole on Friday.
Jackson was the subject of an investigation by The Lens and Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines into the legacy of Louisiana’s split jury law, under which people could be convicted of a crime and sentenced to life in prison with as many as two of 12 jurors voting for acquittal. The law was repealed following a 2018 statewide vote. In 2020, non-unanimous verdicts — which were also allowed in Oregon and Puerto Rico — were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
