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Page Number: 1

(Slip Opinion) 

OCTOBER  TERM,  2019 

1 

Syllabus 

NOTE:  Where  it  is  feasible,  a  syllabus  (headnote)  will  be  released,  as  is 
being  done  in  connection  with  this  case,  at  the  time  the  opinion  is  issued. 
The  syllabus  constitutes  no  part  of  the  opinion  of  the  Court  but  has  been 
prepared  by  the  Reporter  of  Decisions  for  the  convenience  of  the  reader. 
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

RAMOS v. LOUISIANA 

CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL OF LOUISIANA, 
FOURTH CIRCUIT 

No. 18–5924.  Argued October 7, 2019—Decided April 20, 2020 

In 48 States and federal court, a single juror’s vote to acquit is enough to 
prevent a conviction.  But two States, Louisiana and Oregon, have long
punished  people  based  on  10-to-2  verdicts.    In  this  case,  petitioner
Evangelisto  Ramos  was  convicted  of  a  serious  crime  in  a  Louisiana
court by a 10-to-2 jury verdict.  Instead of the mistrial he would have 
received almost anywhere else, Ramos was sentenced to life without 
parole.  He contests his conviction by a nonunanimous jury as an un-
constitutional denial of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.  

Held: The judgment is reversed. 

2016–1199 (La. App. 4 Cir. 11/2/17), 231 So. 3d 44, reversed. 

JUSTICE GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to
Parts I, II–A, III, and IV–B–1, concluding that the Sixth Amendment 
right to a jury trial—as incorporated against the States by way of the 
Fourteenth  Amendment—requires  a  unanimous  verdict  to  convict  a
defendant of a serious offense.  Pp. 3–9, 11–15, 20–23. 

(a) The  Constitution’s  text  and  structure  clearly  indicate  that  the 
Sixth Amendment term “trial by an impartial jury” carries with it some 
meaning about the content and requirements of a jury trial.  One such 
requirement is that a jury must reach a unanimous verdict in order to 
convict.  Juror unanimity emerged as a vital common law right in 14th-
century England, appeared in the early American state constitutions,
and provided the backdrop against which the Sixth Amendment was 
drafted and ratified.  Postadoption treatises and 19th-century Ameri-
can legal treatises confirm this understanding.  This Court has com-
mented  on  the  Sixth  Amendment’s  unanimity  requirement  no  fewer 
than 13 times over more than 120 years, see, e.g., Thompson v. Utah, 
170 U. S. 343, 351; Patton v. United States, 281 U. S. 276, 288, and has