The Rutherford Institute, which defends constitutional and religious rights, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow people to challenge convictions by juries that were not unanimous.
The court recently ruled in Ramos v. Louisiana that the Sixth Amendment requires all jurors to vote to convict a criminal defendant.
"Justice should always be available to those wrongly convicted," said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute and author of "Battlefield America: The War on the American People."
"Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that the right to a unanimous jury verdict is firmly rooted in America's history and fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty. This fundamental right must apply to all imprisoned persons, regardless of when they were convicted," he said.
The institute's friend-of-the-court brief was filed with the high court in a new case, Edwards v. Vannoy.
It joined with several other civil liberties organizations to ask that the Ramos decision, striking down state laws allowing non-unanimous convictions, be applied retroactively.
It would affect those convicted before the Ramos ruling.
The brief contends jury unanimity "is a fundamental constitutional right, and no person should be imprisoned without the assurances of guilt provided by a unanimous jury verdict."
The lawsuit was brought by Thedrick Edwards, who was 19 in 2006 when he became a suspect in a series of crimes in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Police found nothing to connect him to the crimes in his home. But when Edwards surrendered to police, they interrogated him numerous times and "chained Edwards to a wall and, according to Edwards, used force to coerce him into waiving his right to counsel and confessing."
He was charged with counts of robbery and rape, and at trial, the prosecution produced no physical evidence connecting Edwards to the crimes. Only one of five eyewitnesses identified Edwards.
He was convicted, but at least one juror voted to acquit on each charge.
"At that time, all states except Louisiana and Oregon required jury verdicts supporting criminal convictions be unanimous. His final appeal in the state courts was denied in 2011. Edwards then filed a federal habeas corpus petition raising a Sixth Amendment challenge to the non-unanimous verdicts, but the federal courts denied the petition," the institute said.
His petition then went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court ruled in Ramos that a "trial by an impartial jury" guaranteed by the constitution includes the requirement that a jury reach a unanimous verdict in order to convict.
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