In 48 other states, Joshua Horner would have never been convicted of sexually abusing a minor. His four-day trial in 2017 ended with only 11 of 12 jurors believing that the Redmond man committed the sex-abuse crimes that prosecutors alleged. Almost anywhere else in the country, that lone juror's doubt would have been enough to hold off a verdict and force prosecutors to bring a stronger case to prove his guilt.

But because Horner was tried in Oregon, one of only two states in the country where a defendant can be found guilty by a nonunanimous jury, the holdout's vote didn't matter. Horner was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

That could have been the end of the story. But luckily for Horner, both the Oregon Court of Appeals and the Oregon Innocence Project took a closer look at his case, as Oregon Public Broadcasting's Emily Cureton reported. After the appeals court ordered a new trial and the Oregon Innocence Project discredited key testimony from the victim, the Deschutes County district attorney dismissed the charges against Horner and apologized for using "untrue evidence" against him. Horner, who spent 18 months in prison, is now a free man.

It would be overly simplistic to pin the blame for Horner's conviction on Oregon's nonunanimous jury law, which requires that only 10 of 12 jurors agree on a verdict for most felonies. There were plenty of factors that contributed to Horner's questionable conviction. But it's important to recognize that Oregon, with its low bar for verdicts written into the state's Constitution, promotes a system that shortchanges ideals of justice in favor of easier resolutions. Even if those resolutions turn out to be wrong.

Horner's case, as well as a reversal last year for Brad Holbrook, who was similarly convicted of sex abuse of a minor by an 11-1 jury, show how that tradeoff carries severe real-life costs. Oregon's elected officials should not wait any longer to rectify this longstanding inequity and start the campaign to amend the Constitution.

As we have said previously, there's no good argument for keeping Oregon's current standard. The amendment was adopted in 1934 amid a time of xenophobic, racist and anti-Semitic sentiment in Oregon and in the aftermath of a sensational murder trial, as The Oregonian/OregonLive's Shane Dixon Kavanaugh has reported. Those prejudiced attitudes were reflected in the editorials of The Morning Oregonian at the time, which denigrated the presence of "mixed-blood" jurors and questioned immigrants' ability or interest in fulfilling the role and responsibility of jurors.

The 1934 law, by design, allows minority voices to be ignored.

That's especially troubling considering the many disparities built into the criminal justice system, from the disproportionate number of arrests and prosecutions of minorities to the racial composition of juries that decide defendants' fates.

The law is also strangely contradictory. It allows for 10-2 verdicts in most felonies, but insists on unanimity for murder charges. At the same time, Oregon law requires jury unanimity for verdicts on misdemeanors - which are significantly less serious offenses than sex abuse, arson and other crimes that need only get 10 out of 12 people to agree on guilt.

Certainly, supporters are correct to note that without the law, some cases would end in mistrial due to one or two holdout jurors. They fail to recognize that's an asset rather than a drawback for a system that values fairness. The government should be expected to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt to 12 representative jurors when a person's freedom is at stake. And if the goal is to maintain a just and honest system, then we should insist on the highest standards - not shortcuts - to ensure justice is being served throughout the system.

Even prosecutors, who benefit from the lower bar for a conviction, recognize the need to repeal the nonunanimous jury law. Earlier this year, the Oregon District Attorneys Association explored launching a campaign to repeal the provision. It dropped the effort after many objected to the group's plans to simultaneously restrict a provision allowing defendants to go to trial before a judge instead of a jury.

To their credit, however, the prosecutors remain firmly in favor of doing away with the nonunanimous jury provision. In an email last week to The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board, Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill said the group plans to support efforts to repeal the provision - even if their concerns about defendants waiving jury trials go unaddressed.

It's unfortunate that Oregon has waited so long to even try to remove this law from the Constitution. Louisiana, the only other state to recognize nonunanimous verdicts as legitimate, is far ahead in its effort to repeal the law with voters set to decide its fate in November.

Requiring unanimous verdicts won't insulate Oregon from wrongful convictions. But the cases of Josh Horner and Brad Holbrook show that it can help. It's time to end this nonsensical, discriminatory law.

-Helen Jung for The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board

Oregonian editorials

Editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom. Members of the editorial board are Laura Gunderson, Helen Jung, Therese Bottomly and John Maher.

Members of the board meet regularly to determine our institutional stance on issues of the day. We publish editorials when we believe our unique perspective can lend clarity and influence an upcoming decision of great public interest. Editorials are opinion pieces and therefore different from news articles. However, editorials are reported and written by either Laura Gunderson or Helen Jung.

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