By John Hummel

On Election night this week, voters nationwide sent a message to Washington. But voters also laid bare a disturbing fact: Oregon became the last state that clings to a racist, Jim Crow-era law allowing non-unanimous jury decisions. It's time to repeal it.

Louisiana had been the only other state with such a law, but voters there passed a repeal measure on Tuesday by an almost two-to-one margin.

The Oregon Legislature has the opportunity in the 2019 session to refer a simple question to voters: Should Oregon repeal the constitutional provision that authorizes convictions and acquittals by non-unanimous jury verdicts?

As Deschutes County's elected district attorney, I try to get it right every day. That's true of every member of the bar, every prosecutor, every defense attorney and every judge. But try as we might, we are sometimes wrong about a suspect's guilt or innocence.

Our judicial system is built to recognize that challenge. We rely on impartial, unbiased and dedicated jurors to consider the evidence and arguments in individual cases and to render verdicts they believe are required by the evidence and their oaths. They go into a room and discuss what they learned at trial. By considering the viewpoints of fellow jurors and listening to their rationale for the verdict they propose, they maximize the chance they will not exonerate the guilty or convict the innocent.

But that deliberative process breaks down when a majority of jurors can merely ignore the dissenting views of their fellow jurors. No longer are ideas challenged and defended. The integrity of the verdicts are diminished, and the odds of incorrect verdicts increases.

If the Oregon Legislature does the right thing and refers this question to voters, we will all have the opportunity to repudiate a law that was passed in 1934 at the height of the KKK's reign of terror in our state.

Lawmakers deal with many controversial and complex issues. Fixing the Public Employees Retirement System and improving our state's abysmal high school graduation rate will require give and take by all parties, and consensus may never be reached. However, I hope all legislators can agree that repealing an antiquated provision of our state Constitution that calls into question the concept of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is not similarly controversial or complex.

Oregon is no longer in a notorious club with Louisiana. Voters there had the good sense to back out.

Now Oregon has assumed the mantle of the sole state defending non-unanimous jury verdicts. It is long past time to give up that fight. I encourage the legislature to give Oregonians the opportunity to do the right thing.

-- John Hummel was elected Deschutes County District Attorney in May of 2014.

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