Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 59

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

27 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

message in our Seventh Amendment precedents.  The dis-
sent chooses another path entirely—adopting a reading of 
Atlas Roofing that leads not only to an implausibly broad 
construction of public rights, but to an implausibly narrow 
understanding  of  the  jury-trial  guarantee  as  well.  One 
wholly at odds with precedents both old and new.  Nor is 
the dissent shy about its real motivation—and it has noth-
ing  to  do  with  respect  for  precedent  but  much  more  to  do 
with a “power grab”:  Holding the government to the Con-
stitution’s promise of a jury trial, the dissent insists, would 
impose  “constraints  on  what,”  in  its  view,  “modern-day 
adaptable governance must look like.”  Post, at 37.  All of 
which, at bottom, amounts to little more than a complaint 
with  the  Constitution’s  revolutionary  promise  of  popular 
oversight  of  government  officials—and  with  those  judges 
who would honor that promise. 

* 
People like Mr. Jarkesy may be unpopular.  Perhaps even
rightly so:  The acts he allegedly committed may warrant
serious sanctions.  But that should not obscure what is at 
stake in his case or others like it.  While incursions on old 
rights  may  begin  in  cases  against  the  unpopular,  they 
rarely end there.  The authority the government seeks (and 
the dissent would award) in this case—to penalize citizens
without  a  jury,  without  an  independent  judge,  and  under 
procedures  foreign  to  our  courts—certainly  contains  no 
such limits.  That is why the Constitution built “high walls
and  clear  distinctions”  to  safeguard  individual  liberty. 
Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U. S. 211, 239 (1995).
Ones that ensure even the least popular among us has an
independent judge and a jury of his peers resolve his case 
under  procedures  designed  to  ensure  a  fair  trial  in  a  fair 
forum.  In  reaffirming  all  this  today,  the  Court  hardly 
leaves the SEC  without ample powers and  recourse.  The 
agency  is  free  to  pursue  all  of  its  charges  against  Mr.