Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf
Page Number: 6.0

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

Opinion of the Court 

one before us contests any of this; courts in both Louisiana
and Oregon have frankly acknowledged that race was a mo-
tivating  factor  in  the  adoption  of  their  States’  respective
nonunanimity rules.6 

We  took  this  case  to  decide  whether  the  Sixth  Amend-
ment  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  of-
fense.7  Louisiana insists that this Court has never defini-
tively passed on the question and urges us to find its prac-
tice consistent with the Sixth Amendment.  By contrast, the 
dissent  doesn’t  try  to  defend  Louisiana’s  law  on  Sixth  or 
Fourteenth Amendment grounds; tacitly, it seems to admit
that the Constitution forbids States from using nonunani-
mous  juries.  Yet,  unprompted  by  Louisiana,  the  dissent 
suggests our precedent requires us to rule for the State any-
way.   What  explains  all  this?   To  answer  the  puzzle,  it’s  
necessary to say a bit more about the merits of the question
presented, the relevant precedent, and, at last, the conse-
quences that follow from saying what we know to be true. 

I 

The  Sixth  Amendment  promises  that  “[i]n  all  criminal 
prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy 
and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and dis-
trict wherein the crime shall have been committed, which 
district shall have been previously ascertained by law.”  The 
Amendment  goes  on  to  preserve  other  rights  for  criminal 
defendants but says nothing else about what a “trial by an
impartial jury” entails.

Still, the promise of a jury trial surely meant something— 

—————— 
104. 

6 Maxie, App. 82; Williams, App. 104. 
7 Under existing precedent and consistent with a common law tradition 
not at issue here, a defendant may be tried for certain “petty offenses” 
without a jury.  Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U. S. 373, 379 (1966).