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Page Number: 56

4 

RAMOS v. LOUISIANA 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

(1776).  Four more States clearly referred to the common-
law jury right, which included unanimity.  Ky. Const., Art. 
XII, §6 (1792); N. J. Const., Art. XXII (1776); N. Y. Const.,
Art. XLI  (1777);  S. C.  Const.,  Art. IX,  §6  (1790).    Some 
States did not explicitly refer to either the common law or 
unanimity.  See,  e.g.,  Ga.  Const.,  Art.  LXI  (1777);  Mass.
Declaration of Rights, Art. XII (1780).  But there is reason 
to believe that they nevertheless understood unanimity to 
be required.  See, e.g., Rouse v. State, 4 Ga. 136, 147 (1848). 
In light of the express language used in some State Con-
stitutions, respondent Louisiana argues that the omission
of an express unanimity requirement in the Sixth Amend-
ment  reflects  a  deliberate  choice.  This  argument  fails  to 
establish that the Court’s decisions are demonstrably erro-
neous.  The House of Representatives passed a version of 
the amendment providing that “[t]he trial of all crimes . . . 
shall be by an impartial jury of freeholders of the vicinage,
with the requisite of unanimity for conviction, of the right 
of challenge, and other accustomed requisites,” 1 Annals of 
Cong.  435  (1789),  but  the  final  Amendment  contained  no 
reference to vicinage or unanimity.  See Amdt. 6.  I agree
with Justice Harlan and the Court that “the meaning of this 
change is wholly speculative” and that there is “no concrete 
evidence” that the Senate rejected the requirement of una-
nimity.  Baldwin v. New York, 399 U. S. 66, 123, n. 9 (1970) 
(Harlan, J., dissenting); see also ante, at 11–12; Letter from 
J. Madison to E. Pendleton (Sept. 14, 1789), in 1 Letters and 
Other Writings of James Madison 491 (1867).  There is thus 
sufficient evidence to support this Court’s prior interpreta-
tion that the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury re-
quires unanimity. 

2 
There is also considerable evidence that this understand-
ing persisted up to the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s