# Equal Justice | EP 7 | Season 2

An episode of [Burden of Guilt](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1711277020), 25 Mar 2026, 39 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/ec39cd51-11c3-432e-aa44-b08500fd66ca/ad534851-01bd-496b-8a5e-b410015c97d3/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=240645c5-ee68-49b9-8b4e-b08501009bb0

Jermaine Hudson’s conviction exposes the dark legacy of Louisiana’s non-unanimous jury system—where a 10–2 verdict was enough to send a man to prison for a crime that never happened. Jermaine and Bobby Gumpright join forces to try and change a system rooted in Jim Crow laws. You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team at Burdenofguiltpod@gmail.com. For more Burden of Guilt, follow us on Instagram @glasspodcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Any person that was convicted by a non union mystery
[0:09] Speaker 1: did not get a fair trial period. They had an
[0:16] Speaker 1: unconstitutional trial. Nothing else really matters. And I'm not saying
[0:24] Speaker 1: the person isn't guilty. I'm not saying the crime didn't happen.
[0:28] Speaker 1: All I'm saying is they had an unconstitutional process to
[0:34] Speaker 1: get to their conviction. And when we know that for
[0:39] Speaker 1: a fact, when they can prove it nothing else really matters,
[0:44] Speaker 1: they get a do over.
[0:57] Speaker 2: I'm Nancy Glass. This is Burden of Guilty, Season two,
[1:01] Speaker 2: episode seven, Equal Justice. In March of two thousand, Jermaine
[1:07] Speaker 2: Hudson sat in a large courtroom waiting to hear if
[1:11] Speaker 2: he would be going home or be sent to prison.
[1:15] Speaker 2: Would he be found guilty of an armed robbery that
[1:18] Speaker 2: actually never happened. It was up to a twelve person
[1:22] Speaker 2: jury to make that decision, and they came back with
[1:25] Speaker 2: a verdict in less than an hour.
[1:27] Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, have you reached a verdict? Yes, sir,
[1:32] Speaker 3: say Louisiana versus Jermaine Hudson, Criminal District Court for the
[1:37] Speaker 3: Parish of Orleans, Case number four zero seven, Section G
[1:45] Speaker 3: le The jury find the defendant guilty is charged mister Foreman,
[1:50] Speaker 3: is this the verdict of the jury?
[1:52] Speaker 4: Yes, my body is shut down. Everything just went Yes,
[2:00] Speaker 4: everything just went silent. I can't hear people talking, but
[2:05] Speaker 4: everything in my body just shut down. I was like,
[2:10] Speaker 4: this can't be happening to me. It happened so FaZe.
[2:18] Speaker 2: Over the last several episodes, we've learned how Jermaine Hudson
[2:22] Speaker 2: was an unfortunate victim of Bobby Kumprid's lie. It spiraled
[2:26] Speaker 2: into destroying more lives than Bobby had imagined. When he
[2:30] Speaker 2: was only eighteen years old. What he thought was a
[2:33] Speaker 2: smart cover up for a drug habit he was hiding
[2:36] Speaker 2: from his parents turned into an armed robbery case that
[2:40] Speaker 2: sent Germaine to prison with a ninety nine year sentence.
[2:44] Speaker 2: But Bobby's lie was only one part of the problem.
[2:49] Speaker 3: All right, verdict is ten two. Let the verdict be
[2:52] Speaker 3: recorded into and made part of the record.
[2:55] Speaker 2: The verdict was ten to two. That meant ten jurors
[2:59] Speaker 2: said guilty, two said not guilty. Those two jurors were
[3:04] Speaker 2: not confident beyond a reasonable doubt that Germaine had robbed
[3:07] Speaker 2: Bobby at gunpoint, but at the time in Louisiana, that
[3:11] Speaker 2: didn't matter. Ten out of twelve was all the state
[3:15] Speaker 2: needed to get their conviction. In most states, one jurors doubt,
[3:21] Speaker 2: never mind two means a mistrial. That lack of consensus,
[3:26] Speaker 2: lack of unanimity is reasonable doubt, but it wasn't in Louisiana.
[3:32] Speaker 2: For more than one hundred years. That law, the non
[3:36] Speaker 2: unanimous jury rule was part of a larger, darker, more
[3:40] Speaker 2: hateful history in Louisiana's criminal justice system.
[3:44] Speaker 4: Louisiana has set up for failure, especially for African Americans.
[3:50] Speaker 4: It's really set up to destroy their lives.
[3:57] Speaker 2: At the end of the last episode, you heard that
[4:00] Speaker 2: Jermaine called Bobby.
[4:02] Speaker 4: I say, how you doing.
[4:03] Speaker 5: Man, And I hear a voice say, I bet you
[4:07] Speaker 5: never think you would hear from me.
[4:10] Speaker 2: Jermaine called Bobby for two reasons.
[4:13] Speaker 4: I say, even though I told you in the court
[4:16] Speaker 4: room that I forgive you, now you're really hearing it
[4:20] Speaker 4: from me from my voice. One on one I say,
[4:24] Speaker 4: I forgive you, man, I said, I really, honestly, in
[4:28] Speaker 4: my all forgive you. I said. So, let's do something positive.
[4:33] Speaker 4: Let's reach out and change situations. Let's change other people cases.
[4:40] Speaker 4: Let's put our story out there to influence others. That
[4:44] Speaker 4: may have done this to a lot of other people,
[4:46] Speaker 4: which I know have been done to Let's change the narrative.
[4:51] Speaker 4: Let's take the negative and turn it to something positive.
[4:56] Speaker 2: That call started a relationship no one could have made.
[5:02] Speaker 6: It.
[5:02] Speaker 2: Remains forgiveness and warmth, along with Bobby's genuine remorse, were
[5:07] Speaker 2: becoming something bigger than the two of them, and that
[5:10] Speaker 2: day on the phone, they made a pact to use
[5:13] Speaker 2: their story to change Louisiana. In reporting this story, our
[5:21] Speaker 2: team was shocked to discover that non unanimous juries existed
[5:25] Speaker 2: at all. It turns out unanimous juries were never explicitly
[5:30] Speaker 2: written into the United States Constitution, but historians say it
[5:35] Speaker 2: didn't have to be. It was implied.
[5:39] Speaker 7: It would have been redundant, it wouldn't have been something
[5:41] Speaker 7: that they would have thought that they.
[5:42] Speaker 8: Needed to do.
[5:43] Speaker 7: I mean, they didn't include you have the right to
[5:46] Speaker 7: breathe there, because they just assume everybody breathes there. I mean,
[5:50] Speaker 7: these are the kinds of things that were taken for
[5:52] Speaker 7: granted as part of the system.
[5:56] Speaker 2: That's doctor Thomas Ayello. He's an expert in Africana studies
[6:01] Speaker 2: and history from Valdosta University in Georgia. He's also the
[6:05] Speaker 2: author of Jim Crow's Last Stand and an expert on
[6:09] Speaker 2: how Southern states like Louisiana built racism into their laws.
[6:15] Speaker 8: Under the Civil Rights Act of eighteen seventy five, you
[6:18] Speaker 8: couldn't say in the South, we're only going to have
[6:22] Speaker 8: a white jury. It was okay to have an all
[6:24] Speaker 8: white jersey. That was fine, but you couldn't say that
[6:28] Speaker 8: that was what you were doing.
[6:30] Speaker 2: In Louisiana, racism was written into the state constitution in
[6:35] Speaker 2: eighteen ninety eight.
[6:37] Speaker 8: That was the state that put poll taxes and literacy
[6:41] Speaker 8: tests into the constitution of the state to try to
[6:45] Speaker 8: get black voters out of the system. And it was
[6:50] Speaker 8: the constitution that made juries for criminal convictions non unanimous.
[6:58] Speaker 8: Only nine jurors had to agree that you were guilty
[7:04] Speaker 8: for you to go to prison.
[7:07] Speaker 2: Non Unanimous juries were not just allowed, they were part
[7:10] Speaker 2: of a strategy engineered by a Jim Crow state determined
[7:14] Speaker 2: to keep black citizens from gaining any power. Louisiana embedded
[7:20] Speaker 2: this into the state constitution. At the moment when black
[7:24] Speaker 2: men were given the right to serve on a jury,
[7:27] Speaker 2: black men were in the minority, so there would only
[7:30] Speaker 2: be one or two, maybe three people put on the
[7:34] Speaker 2: jury who weren't white, But this clause meant that if
[7:38] Speaker 2: the majority wanted to throw out their votes, they could.
[7:45] Speaker 2: Jermaine's conviction in nineteen ninety nine wasn't just about Bobby's lie.
[7:49] Speaker 2: It was tethered to a legal structure built in the
[7:52] Speaker 2: shadow of slavery more than a century before. Yes, Bobby lied,
[7:58] Speaker 2: but Louisiana provided the perfect environment for him to get
[8:02] Speaker 2: away with it, because when reasonable doubts surfaced in that
[8:06] Speaker 2: jury room, it didn't matter. An estimated fifteen hundred other
[8:12] Speaker 2: people are still incarcerated in Louisiana prisons after split verdicts,
[8:17] Speaker 2: and the situation was even worse earlier in history. Before
[8:22] Speaker 2: the law was changed to ten in the nineteen seventies,
[8:25] Speaker 2: only nine jurors had to agree. Eventually, Jermaine and Bobby
[8:31] Speaker 2: would come together to advocate for those still incarcerated by
[8:35] Speaker 2: non unanimous juries, people who had little hope of ever
[8:39] Speaker 2: getting out of prison. But first they had to plant
[8:43] Speaker 2: new roots and rebuild themselves. For Germaine, that meant a
[8:48] Speaker 2: radical change.
[8:50] Speaker 4: I was leaving this state. I've already had that in
[8:54] Speaker 4: my mind. I had to get out of Louisiana. Mass
[8:59] Speaker 4: incarceration is very, very deep in Louisiana. They will paint
[9:03] Speaker 4: you out to make you look like you as the
[9:06] Speaker 4: most dangerous person to walk the face of dessert. They
[9:11] Speaker 4: will arrest you, try you, find you guilty, and sing
[9:15] Speaker 4: you on your way, and you was a forgotten sould.
[9:19] Speaker 4: After that, he.
[9:21] Speaker 2: Knew he had to leave Louisiana. The only question would
[9:24] Speaker 2: he do it alone or would Kristin, the woman he
[9:27] Speaker 2: loved twenty two years earlier, come with him. It turns
[9:32] Speaker 2: out Kristin had gone to Dallas right after Hurricane Katrina
[9:36] Speaker 2: hit New Orleans and she loved her time there.
[9:40] Speaker 4: She said, yeah, I want to go back to Dallas.
[9:44] Speaker 4: I said, so what we're waiting now, let's make this happen.
[9:46] Speaker 4: And she was done because she didn't think I wanted
[9:49] Speaker 4: to go. But I told h I was leaving this state.
[9:54] Speaker 2: This was the state that had incarcerated him, deprived him
[9:58] Speaker 2: of his freedom and his family. He wanted a fresh start,
[10:02] Speaker 2: and Christian was in.
[10:04] Speaker 4: She found us at place. We packed up everything and
[10:10] Speaker 4: we moved to Texas and we've been to Texas ever since.
[10:14] Speaker 2: And in Texas he found some of the peace he'd
[10:17] Speaker 2: been seeking.
[10:19] Speaker 4: I loved my neighbors. I loved the community period, because
[10:22] Speaker 4: everybody is nice. It's like a community where you can
[10:27] Speaker 4: come outside eleven o'clock at night and you're gonna see
[10:30] Speaker 4: him walking their dogs. They're gonna be jogging, exercising. Just see,
[10:34] Speaker 4: hey man, how you doing. You know that's part of
[10:37] Speaker 4: the American dream. So to have a chance to actually
[10:41] Speaker 4: live that life, it's amazing.
[10:44] Speaker 2: With their dream coming to life, Jermaine decided to make
[10:48] Speaker 2: it official with Kristin.
[10:50] Speaker 4: I honestly never felt no love like the love she gave.
[11:00] Speaker 4: I didn't have the bond with any other woman that
[11:03] Speaker 4: I shared with her. She was the first woman to
[11:08] Speaker 4: ever come into my life and give me the love
[11:11] Speaker 4: that I really was longing for, and she gave me peace.
[11:17] Speaker 4: One thing I can say about her that won't ever
[11:19] Speaker 4: change is our spirit, her love and her loyalty that
[11:23] Speaker 4: never changed with her.
[11:26] Speaker 2: Kristen loved Germaine equally and we.
[11:29] Speaker 4: Got married in November twenty twenty three.
[11:34] Speaker 2: Everything germane manifested when he was locked up came to be.
[11:39] Speaker 4: I am about to start my own business, all my
[11:43] Speaker 4: own home and for work. That's a beautiful feeling to
[11:46] Speaker 4: come home and be a homeowner, you know, to establish things.
[11:52] Speaker 4: So honestly, I'm just getting started.
[12:04] Speaker 2: Bobby also had to start over again after he was
[12:07] Speaker 2: released from jail. When Jermaine forgave him. Jermaine asked him
[12:12] Speaker 2: to live a better life. Bobby was intent on honoring
[12:16] Speaker 2: Germaine's wish, and he has maintained his sobriety since the
[12:19] Speaker 2: day he was arrested.
[12:21] Speaker 5: I went back to school online. I'm just about to
[12:25] Speaker 5: finish my associate's degree.
[12:26] Speaker 4: Now.
[12:28] Speaker 2: He is now using his past addiction to counsel others
[12:32] Speaker 2: still fighting their battles.
[12:34] Speaker 5: I work with an outpatient counseling service where I get
[12:37] Speaker 5: to work with people that are in the criminal justice system.
[12:40] Speaker 5: Most of them are on probation for drugs or alcohol,
[12:42] Speaker 5: and they get sent to me for counseling. I've got
[12:48] Speaker 5: a picture behind my desk that's a before picture of
[12:51] Speaker 5: me when I was on the streets in New Orleans.
[12:53] Speaker 5: So they'll sit down and they'll look at it, and
[12:55] Speaker 5: the first thing they say is is that you mister Bobby.
[12:57] Speaker 5: And I'm like, that was me, not anymore.
[13:07] Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, Louisiana finally ended the use of non
[13:11] Speaker 2: unanimous juries, leaving Oregon as the only states still using them. Then,
[13:17] Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, the United States Supreme Court went further,
[13:21] Speaker 2: ruling that non unanimous jury verdicts were unconstitutional. It was
[13:26] Speaker 2: a landmark decision, but it raised an even bigger question.
[13:31] Speaker 2: What about the people who had already been convicted, the
[13:34] Speaker 2: once sentenced, incarcerated, many for life under that very system.
[13:40] Speaker 2: Here's doctor Thomas Hayello again.
[13:42] Speaker 8: I would say every night you watch a Law and
[13:45] Speaker 8: Order rerun, and they drill it into your head that
[13:48] Speaker 8: the only way to get fairness is to make sure
[13:52] Speaker 8: that all the jurors say that someone is guilty. And
[13:57] Speaker 8: if it was your loved one, it was somebody you
[14:00] Speaker 8: cared about, you would want all those jurors to do that.
[14:04] Speaker 8: The idea that we have in Louisiana, hundreds of people
[14:09] Speaker 8: in prison that are there after one or two people
[14:14] Speaker 8: said they were not guilty, should weigh on your conscience.
[14:19] Speaker 2: The question before the justices was simple but enormous. Would
[14:24] Speaker 2: people like Jermaine found guilty by a non unanimous jury
[14:29] Speaker 2: be entitled to a new trial. In the end, the
[14:35] Speaker 2: Supreme Court declined to require retrials. Instead, they left the
[14:40] Speaker 2: decision up to the individual States, and that's when Bobby
[14:45] Speaker 2: got the call.
[14:47] Speaker 5: Jermaine had asked if I would join him in Baton Rouge,
[14:52] Speaker 5: and like I said from the beginning, he really can't
[14:55] Speaker 5: ask me anything that I'm going to say no to.
[15:12] Speaker 2: Jermaine Hudson was convicted by a non unanimous jury in
[15:16] Speaker 2: the year two thousand. Nearly twenty years later, the Supreme
[15:20] Speaker 2: Court ruled that split juries were unconstitutional, raising hopes that
[15:25] Speaker 2: past convictions would be re examined, but the Court clarified
[15:29] Speaker 2: the ruling would not apply retroactively. If old cases were
[15:34] Speaker 2: to be reopened, the decision would rest with the states.
[15:38] Speaker 6: It is estimated there are roughly fifteen hundred people in
[15:41] Speaker 6: Louisiana prisons convicted by non unanimous juries who have used
[15:44] Speaker 6: up all their chances to appeal. The Promise of Justice
[15:47] Speaker 6: Initiatives says eighty percent are black and have long called
[15:50] Speaker 6: the Jim Crow era practice racist.
[15:53] Speaker 2: As soon as Louisiana Senator Royce Duplessis joined the legislature,
[15:58] Speaker 2: he began addressing the legacy of Jim Crow era jury's members.
[16:03] Speaker 9: Justice has no expiration date, and if we choose to
[16:07] Speaker 9: vote down this bill, that's what we're saying.
[16:11] Speaker 6: Tough luck.
[16:13] Speaker 9: We're saying that we do not want to restore the
[16:16] Speaker 9: faith in our justice system. We have an opportunity right now,
[16:21] Speaker 9: Louisiana to remove this stain, because right now we are
[16:24] Speaker 9: the only ones who are wearing it. We were sent
[16:28] Speaker 9: here to do the hard stuff, and I know that
[16:30] Speaker 9: this vote is hard for many of you. But in
[16:32] Speaker 9: many ways, it's simple, do we affirm the past or
[16:36] Speaker 9: do we break free from the past.
[16:39] Speaker 5: I didn't even know it was a non unanimous verdict.
[16:41] Speaker 5: I thought everybody found him guilty. I didn't know that
[16:45] Speaker 5: there was such a thing.
[16:47] Speaker 2: When Bobby learned about non unanimous juries, he was appalled
[16:52] Speaker 2: and helping the next person have a chance, another person
[16:56] Speaker 2: like Jermaine felt like part of his amends.
[17:00] Speaker 5: When I had reached out and got reunited with Jermaine,
[17:05] Speaker 5: I was able to learn a little bit more about
[17:06] Speaker 5: the work that they were doing, and Jermaine asked if
[17:09] Speaker 5: I would consider helping, and I couldn't ask for something
[17:15] Speaker 5: better to be a part of.
[17:18] Speaker 2: Later, when Royce Duplessus joined the State Senate, he teamed
[17:22] Speaker 2: up with criminal justice reform advocates to pass legislation that
[17:26] Speaker 2: could bring relief to those who may have been wrongly
[17:29] Speaker 2: convicted because of non unanimous juries. And that's when Germaine
[17:34] Speaker 2: and Bobby were asked to tell their story publicly. In fact,
[17:38] Speaker 2: that's how we first heard about Jermaine's case. In addition
[17:42] Speaker 2: to speaking to the press, Jermaine and Bobby testified before
[17:46] Speaker 2: the Louisiana Senate Judiciary Committee. Jermaine sat at a table
[17:52] Speaker 2: wearing a green T shirt that said and Jim Crow
[17:55] Speaker 2: juries and faced the committee. Sitting on a dais. A
[17:59] Speaker 2: crowd of supporters looked on behind him.
[18:02] Speaker 10: Today, I am here is support of the now unanimous
[18:05] Speaker 10: your repeal pran that you guy has passed its bill
[18:11] Speaker 10: today because you still have a lot of people that
[18:13] Speaker 10: suffered behind this.
[18:16] Speaker 2: In Bobby's case, it's pretty striking to hear how far
[18:19] Speaker 2: he's come. For Bobby, it was tough to admit his
[18:22] Speaker 2: crime in public, out in the open in the Louisiana
[18:25] Speaker 2: State Capitol building, but he fell to something he had
[18:29] Speaker 2: to do for Jermaine.
[18:33] Speaker 11: In nineteen ninety nine and froze of my addition, I
[18:36] Speaker 11: falsely reported a crime, and it's desperate. It's happened to
[18:38] Speaker 11: hide my failures. That lie, my lie led to the
[18:44] Speaker 11: wrongful conviction of Jermaine Hudson. I couldn't change the past,
[18:50] Speaker 11: but I could refuse to live the lie any longer
[18:53] Speaker 11: while a justice continued.
[18:56] Speaker 2: In April of twenty twenty five, the committee voted on
[18:59] Speaker 2: the bill. Here's what happened five years one day.
[19:07] Speaker 12: Celebration this week from supporters of Senate Bill two eighteen
[19:11] Speaker 12: as it travels to the Senate floor. Proponents say it
[19:14] Speaker 12: would plug a hole in the justice system.
[19:18] Speaker 2: The bill made it over the first hurdle. It was
[19:20] Speaker 2: approved by the committee, but now they had to go
[19:24] Speaker 2: to the Senate floor, and there was a powerful organization
[19:28] Speaker 2: that opposed the bill, the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, also
[19:33] Speaker 2: known as the LDAA. The executive director is Zach Daniels.
[19:39] Speaker 13: We're a nonprofit organization that is responsible for the training, liaison,
[19:44] Speaker 13: and lobbying for the district attorneys of the state of Louisiana.
[19:48] Speaker 2: The LDAA contends the prior split verdict system was constitutional
[19:53] Speaker 2: at the time and should not be retroactively challenged. We
[19:58] Speaker 2: asked Zach to explain.
[20:00] Speaker 13: I think it's a sliding scale where perhaps you do
[20:03] Speaker 13: have cases that may need more debate. Perhaps you on
[20:07] Speaker 13: the opposite end of that scale, have folks that, regardless
[20:10] Speaker 13: of the amount of evidence, not even proof beyond a
[20:12] Speaker 13: reasonable doubt, but proof beyond all doubt, they would never
[20:15] Speaker 13: vote guilty. It often comes up inadvertently where you have
[20:19] Speaker 13: deeply religious folks. One consistent thing, especially in Christian denominations,
[20:24] Speaker 13: is not sitting in judgment of others and forgiveness. So
[20:27] Speaker 13: if you have an inability to sit in judgment of another,
[20:31] Speaker 13: you could not vote.
[20:32] Speaker 2: Zach believes a juror who appears moral and can get
[20:36] Speaker 2: through the selection process won't necessarily disclose or even realize
[20:40] Speaker 2: they are not able to judge a person guilty.
[20:43] Speaker 13: They would be an eleven to one verdict. That has
[20:46] Speaker 13: nothing to do with the evidence. It has to do
[20:48] Speaker 13: with a deeply held religious conviction.
[20:51] Speaker 2: But isn't it easier to be judged not guilty if
[20:54] Speaker 2: you only need ten votes?
[20:56] Speaker 13: So a person may, you could argue, get convicted more
[20:59] Speaker 13: easy in Louisiana with a non unanimous verdict, But an
[21:02] Speaker 13: acquittal could also happen more easily as well.
[21:06] Speaker 2: And what about the victims? How would retrying cases impact them?
[21:11] Speaker 13: Where you have a victim's family, in a murder case
[21:13] Speaker 13: where you have a rape victim who in the rarity
[21:17] Speaker 13: chooses to report the crime, it proceeds to trial and
[21:20] Speaker 13: faces their abuser. We have an obligation to follow through
[21:25] Speaker 13: on the promises that we made there.
[21:27] Speaker 2: And then, of course there's money. What would it cost.
[21:31] Speaker 13: Let's talk about whether we can feasibly retry these cases
[21:35] Speaker 13: we do. We talk about logistics, we talk about this cost.
[21:38] Speaker 13: Let's talk about fifteen hundred major cases, most of them
[21:42] Speaker 13: if they're still in prison at this point. We're talking
[21:43] Speaker 13: about the worst rapes and murders in Louisiana's history.
[21:47] Speaker 2: But this applied to cases like Germans, and it begs
[21:51] Speaker 2: the question, if these people were the worst of the worst,
[21:56] Speaker 2: why was the verdict not unanimous for all those split
[22:00] Speaker 2: decisions the result of religious jurors unable to sit in judgment.
[22:07] Speaker 2: Eliza Kaplan, a professor of law and the director of
[22:11] Speaker 2: the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis and Clark Law
[22:14] Speaker 2: School in Oregon, disagrees with the LDAA.
[22:18] Speaker 1: I mean, the truth is on this issue. You know,
[22:22] Speaker 1: any person that was convicted by a non unan mystery
[22:29] Speaker 1: did not get a fair trial. Period, they had an
[22:34] Speaker 1: unconstitutional trial. Nothing else really matters, and I'm not saying
[22:42] Speaker 1: the person isn't guilty. I'm not saying the crime didn't happen.
[22:46] Speaker 1: All I'm saying is they had an unconstitutional process to
[22:51] Speaker 1: get to their conviction. And when we know that for
[22:56] Speaker 1: a fact, they get a do over.
[23:00] Speaker 2: It's why lawyers, the incarcerated, their families, and even some
[23:04] Speaker 2: victims were calling on lawmakers to right an old wrong.
[23:09] Speaker 2: This is Samantha Kennedy, the executive director of the Promise
[23:12] Speaker 2: of Justice Initiative in New Orleans.
[23:15] Speaker 14: When we're talking about non unanimous juris, what that did
[23:21] Speaker 14: is it created a conveyor belt. It's pretty easy to
[23:25] Speaker 14: put someone in prison if you don't have to prove
[23:26] Speaker 14: your case. What happened is the district attorneys have not
[23:32] Speaker 14: had to do their job for two hundred years. In fact,
[23:38] Speaker 14: they're taking some sort of shortcut which ends with the conviction.
[23:43] Speaker 14: There's no other purpose.
[23:48] Speaker 2: On May twenty, twenty twenty five, the bill to challenge
[23:52] Speaker 2: those non unanimous verdicts, the one you heard earlier, passed
[23:56] Speaker 2: out of committee, went to a vote on the State
[23:58] Speaker 2: Senate floor. Senator Duplessis made an impassioned plea.
[24:03] Speaker 9: What's our legacy going to be? Because this vote, this
[24:07] Speaker 9: is our legacy. I move a final pass.
[24:10] Speaker 15: Thank you, Senator Plasma was five past center Bill two eighteen.
[24:14] Speaker 15: When the machines were opened, all those in favor of
[24:15] Speaker 15: oh Yes opposed vote no meme sectory open machines.
[24:18] Speaker 2: And when those votes were counted, here's what happened.
[24:22] Speaker 15: I find was nine yea's and twenty six DA's and
[24:24] Speaker 15: bill failed to pass.
[24:26] Speaker 2: Thanks Bill, and just like that, it was over. The
[24:31] Speaker 2: bill failed. Louisiana wouldn't revisit split jury convictions, at least
[24:37] Speaker 2: for now. You just heard how Jermaine and Bobby joined
[24:49] Speaker 2: forces to help other people who may have been convicted
[24:52] Speaker 2: wrongly by a non unanimous jury get a second chance
[24:56] Speaker 2: at freedom. They traveled to Louisiana's Capitol building and urged
[25:00] Speaker 2: lawmakers to provide that pathway. There had been momentum, hope, headlines,
[25:06] Speaker 2: testimony that moved the room. For a moment it felt possible.
[25:11] Speaker 15: I thought it was nine years and twenty six days
[25:13] Speaker 15: and bill failed to pass. Thanks Bill.
[25:18] Speaker 2: It was heartbreaking for Jermaine. It meant the men he
[25:22] Speaker 2: left behind in ant Gola, who also had split verdicts,
[25:25] Speaker 2: who may not have been guilty, would not get the
[25:28] Speaker 2: second chance he was finally living.
[25:31] Speaker 4: I literally shared tears. I broke down crime just to
[25:37] Speaker 4: deny it, you know what I mean. It was crushing.
[25:41] Speaker 4: It was like I said, it was even more crushing
[25:43] Speaker 4: watching those inmates, families, the mothers, their children, mothers, their
[25:48] Speaker 4: brother's sister, is like they just ripped their hoard out
[25:51] Speaker 4: from people's chests. Because I know that's how it feeled
[25:54] Speaker 4: to me.
[25:56] Speaker 2: He was especially moved by the victims of crime who
[26:00] Speaker 2: advocated for the bill to pass.
[26:02] Speaker 4: A lot of them, a lot of their victims showed
[26:04] Speaker 4: up and cool saying that they would like to see
[26:06] Speaker 4: these guys with another shot at life, you know, second chance.
[26:10] Speaker 4: So that's what really had me emotional, and they had
[26:13] Speaker 4: me like that for probably one or two days.
[26:16] Speaker 2: Bobby had outed himself and what he had done to
[26:19] Speaker 2: Germaine publicly. He showed legislators how easily he had manipulated
[26:25] Speaker 2: the system. He was wholeheartedly invested in the bill passing.
[26:30] Speaker 5: There's an app where you can watch the webcam on
[26:32] Speaker 5: the Senate floor, and I spent days watching that, and
[26:37] Speaker 5: I remember thinking it took two minutes for the vote,
[26:42] Speaker 5: and then they just went right along. I was here
[26:46] Speaker 5: in my office, and after the vote, I went back
[26:50] Speaker 5: in and I was just I was devastated.
[26:54] Speaker 2: Bobby made it a goal to make amends to Germaine.
[26:57] Speaker 2: He wanted to do everything possible to own up to
[27:00] Speaker 2: his mistakes and repair what he could. He felt like
[27:03] Speaker 2: Louisiana should do the same.
[27:06] Speaker 5: Amends is an integral part of recovery.
[27:11] Speaker 6: Right.
[27:11] Speaker 5: As a recovering recovered addict, I know how important it
[27:19] Speaker 5: is to recognize the things that I did wrong and
[27:25] Speaker 5: do what I can to let the people know that
[27:28] Speaker 5: I harmed, that I'm sorry. And that doesn't always just
[27:34] Speaker 5: mean saying I'm sorry. Sometimes that means providing some sort
[27:38] Speaker 5: of tangible witness to hey, I'm not that person anymore.
[27:48] Speaker 5: And when it comes to Louisiana as a state, all
[27:53] Speaker 5: those politicians stand up there and say, yes, this law
[27:57] Speaker 5: was created in a horrible way, it was created with
[28:01] Speaker 5: racist views, but that's not Louisiana anymore. Okay, well, that's
[28:06] Speaker 5: somewhat an apology, but there's nothing tangible there. You're not
[28:12] Speaker 5: showing me that Louisiana is not that way anymore, because
[28:15] Speaker 5: if they were, then you would be going back and
[28:18] Speaker 5: dealing with the mistakes that Louisiana made over many, many
[28:23] Speaker 5: years way prior to Jermaine and I coming into this system.
[28:30] Speaker 5: It's been happening for a long time. All I heard
[28:34] Speaker 5: during those hearings from the opponents was it'll cost too much,
[28:39] Speaker 5: it'll be too hard, we just can't do it. And
[28:44] Speaker 5: for years I told myself, it'll cost too much, it's
[28:51] Speaker 5: too hard, and I just can't do it. And Jermaine
[28:57] Speaker 5: and his family suffered for over twenty years because I
[29:00] Speaker 5: kept telling myself that, and until I was able to say,
[29:06] Speaker 5: it doesn't matter how much it costs, it doesn't matter
[29:09] Speaker 5: how hard it is. It has to be done because
[29:15] Speaker 5: it's the right thing to do. That's what Louisiana needs
[29:20] Speaker 5: to do if they want to show the rest of
[29:23] Speaker 5: the country and the world that that's not them anymore.
[29:31] Speaker 2: Germaine was upset and frustrated the bill not passing. It
[29:35] Speaker 2: felt like failure, but the men he was thinking about
[29:39] Speaker 2: advocating for they weren't about to let Germaine wallow.
[29:43] Speaker 4: Well brought me back to reality is I was getting
[29:46] Speaker 4: phone called from these guys, and it was telling me
[29:49] Speaker 4: to chill, relax, this is just the beginning. We need
[29:53] Speaker 4: your focus. It's going to be alright, man, But for
[29:57] Speaker 4: them to call me and encourage me like that, it
[30:00] Speaker 4: my spirit up like that. It says a lot about
[30:02] Speaker 4: the character of these guys. So when something like that dropped,
[30:06] Speaker 4: something like that come along, then man, it's either you're
[30:12] Speaker 4: gonna hold or you're gonna fold.
[30:15] Speaker 2: And Germane is not about to fold.
[30:18] Speaker 4: Lord knows, I didn't have it on my mind to
[30:22] Speaker 4: be an advocate like I am today. But it shows
[30:26] Speaker 4: you how to universe work. You know, somebody got to
[30:29] Speaker 4: step up, somebody got to take the lead, somebody got
[30:31] Speaker 4: to take one for the team.
[30:34] Speaker 2: So it's going back to the Capitol in just a
[30:37] Speaker 2: few weeks to try again and keep trying. We haven't
[30:47] Speaker 2: spent much time discussing what happened in Oregon, the other
[30:50] Speaker 2: state that until twenty twenty had the non unanimous jury system.
[30:55] Speaker 2: It started in nineteen thirty four, and it was similar
[30:58] Speaker 2: to Louisiana in that the rule evolved from a deeply
[31:01] Speaker 2: discriminatory history. Law professor Eliza Kaplan picks up the story.
[31:08] Speaker 1: There was a very big, underground sort of gang world
[31:12] Speaker 1: happening here back then. Jacob Silverman was on trial for
[31:18] Speaker 1: murder of another gangster type person, and the newspapers followed
[31:25] Speaker 1: it so carefully, like every single move was followed. They
[31:29] Speaker 1: wanted to give him the death penalty, and there was
[31:32] Speaker 1: one person on the jury that just would not go
[31:36] Speaker 1: for it, and so in the end they agreed to manslaughter.
[31:42] Speaker 2: And a single holdout juror sparked huge public outrage. How
[31:47] Speaker 2: could a Jewish man have gotten away with murder?
[31:51] Speaker 1: If you look back at all the newspaper coverage, a
[31:54] Speaker 1: lot of the outrage really were coming from a place
[31:58] Speaker 1: of nation, not just against him and that he got
[32:03] Speaker 1: the deal, but the jurors from these other countries can't
[32:08] Speaker 1: make these decisions and aren't smart enough, and those kinds
[32:12] Speaker 1: of things.
[32:15] Speaker 2: Within a year, voters amended the state constitution and Oregon
[32:19] Speaker 2: became one of the only states in the country to
[32:22] Speaker 2: allow non unanimous jury convictions. Eliza first learned about non
[32:27] Speaker 2: unanimous juries when she moved to Oregon from the East Coast.
[32:30] Speaker 1: I was floored, just floored, like, how could this be
[32:35] Speaker 1: the whole sort of concept of convicting someone as the
[32:40] Speaker 1: reasonable doubt standard? And if one or two people on
[32:43] Speaker 1: a jury think that the state didn't make their case
[32:46] Speaker 1: or that someone might be innocent. If that's happening, then
[32:49] Speaker 1: how can you even convict someone? So I was shocked.
[32:54] Speaker 2: She was on the front lines of the fight in
[32:56] Speaker 2: Oregon to retry cases.
[32:59] Speaker 1: The District Attorney Association in Louisiana is saying very much
[33:04] Speaker 1: what our District Attorney Association said. And let's just be clear.
[33:08] Speaker 1: The arguments are really similar to not ending the rule.
[33:14] Speaker 1: They say the numbers, the money, the burden, the old cases, right,
[33:18] Speaker 1: I mean, those were the arguments to not get rid
[33:21] Speaker 1: of the rule. And I just want to say that
[33:24] Speaker 1: some of the arguments are not wrong arguments. It's a lot,
[33:30] Speaker 1: especially in the very populated parishes or counties, there will
[33:35] Speaker 1: be a lot of cases, and it is really hard
[33:39] Speaker 1: on old cases or to like contact these poor victims
[33:44] Speaker 1: and all of it. I mean, it's a mess, there's
[33:47] Speaker 1: no doubt about that. It's not as much of a
[33:50] Speaker 1: mess as they say. And the other thing I'd say
[33:54] Speaker 1: is like, sorry, then you shouldn't have unconstitutionally convicted people
[34:00] Speaker 1: for over one hundred years. And the truth is the
[34:03] Speaker 1: numbers of people that will never get relief, the numbers
[34:09] Speaker 1: of people that can't prove it or died already or
[34:13] Speaker 1: already served their time in prison. I mean, nobody wins
[34:17] Speaker 1: in this Nobody wins. It's really sad. It's sad. I mean,
[34:24] Speaker 1: you know the whole thing. It's just sad and awful.
[34:26] Speaker 1: But it's the state's responsibilities, both states to make it right.
[34:34] Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, Oregon went in a completely different
[34:38] Speaker 2: direction than Louisiana. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that the
[34:43] Speaker 2: unanimous jury requirement does apply retroactively under Oregon law. It
[34:49] Speaker 2: opened up possibilities for hundreds of people in prison, ranging
[34:53] Speaker 2: from new trials to dismissals. The process has been completed there.
[35:00] Speaker 2: I was curious, how difficult was it to go back
[35:04] Speaker 2: through all those cases.
[35:05] Speaker 1: It was so much better than we thought it would
[35:07] Speaker 1: be on every level. It can happen much quicker and
[35:13] Speaker 1: in a more meaningful way for everyone involved.
[35:21] Speaker 2: Okay, now I want to get back to Jermaine. You've
[35:24] Speaker 2: heard his story. He faced down the state, he made
[35:26] Speaker 2: his peace with Bobby, but there was something he hadn't
[35:30] Speaker 2: done since his release from Angola.
[35:32] Speaker 4: I was released in March twenty six, twenty and twenty one,
[35:37] Speaker 4: and I haven't been back to this place since.
[35:42] Speaker 2: Our team went with him. We're in the car as
[35:45] Speaker 2: he thinks about returning to the prison where he was
[35:48] Speaker 2: incarcerated for twenty two years.
[35:51] Speaker 4: A lot of the fellow's been asking me when I'm
[35:54] Speaker 4: coming back. I wasn't really ready to face it at
[35:57] Speaker 4: that moment because it was still fresh in my system
[36:02] Speaker 4: and I didn't want to look at that place for
[36:04] Speaker 4: a long time. But now it's a time for me
[36:07] Speaker 4: to go pay my respect, pay my visit to the
[36:11] Speaker 4: brothers that I grew up with, and give them some hope.
[36:15] Speaker 2: We go back to Angola with Germaine. That's next time
[36:19] Speaker 2: on the final episode of Burden of Guilt. Thank you
[36:32] Speaker 2: for listening. If you're enjoying Burden of Guilt, subscribe, rate
[36:36] Speaker 2: and review the series with five stars yay. It helps
[36:40] Speaker 2: other people find our show. So are you curious about
[36:45] Speaker 2: what the people involved in this look like? Do you
[36:47] Speaker 2: want to hear bonus content? Just check out our Instagram
[36:51] Speaker 2: account at Glass Podcasts, where we recap each episode with
[36:56] Speaker 2: show notes that include people, places, and even court records.
[37:01] Speaker 2: You can reach out to the Burden of Guilt team
[37:04] Speaker 2: at Burden of Guildpod at gmail dot com. That's Burden
[37:11] Speaker 2: of Guildpod at gmail dot com. Burden of Guilt is
[37:14] Speaker 2: a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group,
[37:18] Speaker 2: in partnership with iHeartPodcasts. The series is executive produced and
[37:24] Speaker 2: hosted by me Nancy Glass, produced by Kerry Hartman, also
[37:28] Speaker 2: produced by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our story editor
[37:33] Speaker 2: is Monique Leboard. Our associate producer is Jade Abdul Malik.
[37:39] Speaker 2: Our production manager is Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart team is
[37:44] Speaker 2: Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Thank you to our voice
[37:48] Speaker 2: actors Trey Morgan and Ben Fetterman. Audio editing by Zach Prutteau,
[37:54] Speaker 2: mixed and mastered by Anna McClain. The Burden of Guilt
[37:58] Speaker 2: theme is composed by Oliver Bain's music library provided by
[38:03] Speaker 2: Mob Music, and we want to give our special thanks
[38:06] Speaker 2: to Jermaine Hudson and Bobby Gumpright. For more podcasts from iHeart,
[38:12] Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app or Apple Podcasts. To follow the
[38:17] Speaker 2: work of the Promise of Justice initiative, go to Promise
[38:21] Speaker 2: of Justice dot org, on Instagram and Twitter at justices Promise,
[38:27] Speaker 2: and on Facebook and Blue Sky at Promise of Justice

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