A Crime On the Bayou: A Film About the Right To Trial By Jury @NancyBuirski @CrimeOnTheBayou

New from director Nancy Buirski: A Crime on the Bayou (Augusta Films).

A Crime on the Bayou presents the story of Gary Duncan, a young African American man in Louisiana convicted of assault and battery on a white man. Under the state law at the time, Mr. Duncan was not entitled to a jury trial because the penalty for a misdemeanor was a maximum of two years in prison and a three hundred dollar fine. The Supreme Court heard the appeal and ruled that under the Sixth Amendment, Louisiana had violated Mr. Duncan’s constitutional right to a trial by jury.

See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968).