Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 51.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

19 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

be  susceptible  to  resolution  without  a  court,  jury,  or  the
other usual protections an Article III court affords.  But out-
side  of  those  limited  areas,  we  have  no  license  to  deprive 
the American people of their constitutional right to an in-
dependent  judge,  to  a  jury  of  their  peers,  or  to  the  proce-
dural  protections  at  trial  that  due  process  normally  de-
mands.  Let alone do so whenever the government wishes 
to dispense with them.

This Court does not subject other constitutional rights to 
such  shabby  treatment.  We  have  “reaffirm[ed],”  many
times and “emphatically[,] that the First Amendment does 
not permit the State to sacrifice speech for efficiency.”  Riley 
v. National Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc., 487 U. S. 781, 
795  (1988).  We  have  rejected  a  framework  for  Second 
Amendment challenges that would balance the right to bear 
arms  against  “ ‘other  important  governmental  interests.’ ”  
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 634 (2008).  It 
is  hornbook  Fourth  Amendment  law  that  “[a]  generalized 
interest  in  expedient  law  enforcement  cannot,  without 
more, justify a warrantless search.”  Georgia v. Randolph, 
547 U. S. 103, 115, n. 5 (2006).  And even though the Sixth
Amendment’s  guarantee  of  a  jury  trial  in  criminal  cases 
may have “ ‘its weaknesses and the potential for misuse,’ ” 
Duncan  v.  Louisiana,  391  U. S.  145,  156  (1968),  we  con-
tinue  to  insist  that  it  “be  jealously  preserved,”  Patton  v. 
United States, 281 U. S. 276, 312 (1930); see Ramos v. Lou-
isiana, 590 U. S. 83, 110–111 (2020) (plurality opinion); Er-
linger, 602 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 18) (“There is no effi-
ciency exception to the . . . Sixth Amendmen[t]”).

Why should Article III, the Seventh Amendment, or the
Fifth Amendment’s promise of due process be any different? 
None  of  them  exists  to  “protec[t]  judicial  authority  for  its 
own sake.”  Oil States, 584 U. S., at 356 (GORSUCH, J., dis-
senting).  They  exist  to  “protect  the  individual.”    Bond  v. 
United States, 564 U. S. 211, 222 (2011).  And their protec-