Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf
Page Number: 78

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

17 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

What about Justice Powell’s concurrence?  The majority
treats Justice Powell’s view as idiosyncratic, but it does not 
merit that derision.  Justice Powell’s belief that the Consti-
tution allows the States a degree of flexibility in the inter-
pretation of certain constitutional rights, although not our
dominant approach in  recent years, McDonald, 561 U. S., 
at 759–766, has old and respectable roots.  For a long time, 
that was the Court’s approach.  See id., at 759–761.  Only
gradually did the Court abandon this “two-tier” system, see 
id., at 762–767, and it was not until Duncan, supra, at 154– 
158, decided just four years before Apodaca, that the Sixth 
Amendment jury-trial right was held to apply to the States 
at all.  Justice Powell’s approach is also not without recent 
proponents, including, at least with respect to the Second 
Amendment, Justices now in the majority.27 

Even now, our cases do not hold that every provision of
the  Bill  of Rights  applies  in  the  same  way  to  the  Federal 
Government  and  the  States.  A  notable  exception  is  the
Grand  Jury  Clause  of  the  Fifth  Amendment,  a  provision 
that, like the Sixth Amendment jury-trial right, reflects the
importance that the founding generation attached to juries 

—————— 

27 As  recently  as  2010,  prominent  advocates  urged  us  to  hold  that  a 
provision of the Bill of Rights applies differently to the Federal Govern-
ment and the States.  In McDonald, 561 U. S. 742, the city of Chicago 
and  some  of  its  amici  argued  that,  despite  our  decision  in  District  of 
Columbia  v.  Heller,  554  U. S.  570  (2008),  States  and  cities  should  be 
given leeway to regulate the possession of a firearm in the home for self-
defense in accordance with the particular needs and desires of their citi-
zens.  561 U. S., at 753.  Although this argument did not prevail, four
Justices, some now in the majority, appeared to take that view.  See id., 
at 927 (BREYER, J., joined by GINSBURG and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., dissenting) 
(observing that “gun violence . . . varies as between rural communities 
and  cities”  and  arguing  that  States  and  cities  should  be  free  to  adopt
rules that meet local needs and preferences); id., at 866 (Stevens, J., dis-
senting) (“The rights protected against state infringement by the Four-
teenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause need not be identical in shape
or  scope  to  the  rights  protected  against  Federal  Government  infringe-
ment by the various provisions of the Bill of Rights”).