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Page Number: 21

18 

RAMOS v. LOUISIANA 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

judgments  on  the  narrowest  grounds.’ ”49    But  notice  that 
the dissent never actually gets around to telling us which 
opinion in Apodaca it considers to be the narrowest and con-
trolling  one  under  Marks—or  why.   So  while  the  dissent 
worries  that  we  defy  a  Marks  precedent,  it  is  oddly  coy 
about where exactly that precedent might be found. 

The parties recognize what the dissent does not:  Marks 
has nothing to do with this case.  Unlike a Marks dispute
where the litigants duel over which opinion represents the 
narrowest and controlling one, the parties before us accept
that Apodaca yielded no controlling opinion at all.  In par-
ticular, both sides admit that Justice Powell’s opinion can-
not  bind  us—precisely  because  he  relied  on  a  dual-track
rule of incorporation that an unbroken line of majority opin-
ions before and after Apodaca has rejected.  Still, the dis-
sent  presses  the  issue,  suggesting  that  a  single  Justice’s 
opinion  can  overrule  prior  precedents  under  “the  logic”  of 
Marks.50  But, as the dissent itself implicitly acknowledges, 
Marks never sought to offer or defend such a rule.  And, as 
we have seen, too, a rule like that would do more to harm 
than advance stare decisis. 

The  dissent’s  backup  argument  fares  no  better.    In  the 
end, even the dissent is forced to concede that Justice Pow-
ell’s reasoning in Apodaca lacks controlling force.51  So far, 
so good.  But then the dissent suggests Apodaca somehow 
still manages to supply a controlling precedent as to its re-
sult.52  Look closely, though.  The dissent’s account of Apo-
daca’s result looks suspiciously like the reasoning of Justice 
Powell’s opinion:  “In Apodaca, this means that when (1) a 
defendant is convicted in state court, (2) at least 10 of the 
12 jurors vote to convict, and (3) the defendant argues that
the  conviction  violates  the  Constitution  because  the  vote 
—————— 

49 Id., at 193. 
50 Post, at 10–11. 
51 Post, at 11–12. 
52 Post, at 8.