Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf
Page Number: 72.0

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

11 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

The next question is whether the Marks rule applies any
differently when the precedent that would be established by
a  fractured  decision  would  overrule  a  prior  precedent.
Again,  the  logic  of  Marks  dictates  an  affirmative  answer, 
and I am aware of no case holding that the Marks rule ap-
plies any differently in this situation.  But as far as the pre-
sent  case  is  concerned,  this  question  is  academic  because 
Apodaca did not overrule any prior decision of this Court.
At  most,  what  the  Court  had  “recognized,”  ante,  at  6,  in 
prior  cases  is  that  the  Sixth  Amendment  guaranteed  the 
right  to  a  unanimous  jury  verdict  in  trials  in  federal  and 
territorial courts.15  Whether the same rule applied in state
prosecutions had not been decided, and indeed, until Dun-
can  v.  Louisiana,  391  U. S.  145,  154–158  (1968),  was
handed  down  just  four  years  before  Apodaca,  the  Sixth 
Amendment had not been held to apply to the States. 

The final question is whether Justice Powell’s reasoning
in Apodaca—namely, his view that the Fourteenth Amend-
ment did not incorporate every aspect of the Sixth Amend-
ment jury-trial right—is a binding precedent, and the an-
swer  to  that  question  is  no.    When,  in  the  years  after 
Apodaca, new questions arose about the scope of the jury-
trial right in state court—as they did in cases like Apprendi 
v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000), and Blakely v. Wash-
ington, 542 U. S. 296 (2004)—nobody thought for a second 
that Apodaca committed the Court to Justice Powell’s view 

—————— 
v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265 (1978)); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. 
v. Casey, 947 F. 2d 682, 694–698 (CA3 1991) (noting that “[t]he binding
opinion from a splintered decision is as authoritative for lower courts as 
a  nine-Justice  opinion,”  and  concluding  based  on  opinions  of  Justice 
O’Connor that the test for the constitutionality of abortion regulations is
undue burden), aff ’d in part and rev’d in part, 505 U. S. 833 (1992); Blum 
v. Witco Chemical Corp., 888 F. 2d 975, 981 (CA3 1989); see also United 
States v. Duvall, 705 F. 3d 479, 483, n. 1 (CADC 2013) (Kavanaugh, J., 
for the court). 

15 See, e.g., Andres v. United States, 333 U. S. 740, 748 (1948); Thomp-

son v. Utah, 170 U. S. 343, 351 (1898).