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Page Number: 29

26 

RAMOS v. LOUISIANA 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

In the final accounting, the dissent’s stare decisis argu-
ments round to zero.  We have an admittedly mistaken de-
cision, on a constitutional issue, an outlier on the day it was 
decided, one that’s become lonelier with time.  In arguing
otherwise, the dissent must elide the reliance the American 
people  place  in  their  constitutionally  protected  liberties, 
overplay the competing interests of two States, count some
of those interests twice, and make no small amount of new 
precedent all its own. 

V 
On what ground would anyone have us leave Mr. Ramos
in prison for the rest of his life?  Not a single Member of this 
Court is prepared to say Louisiana secured his conviction
constitutionally under the Sixth Amendment.  No one be-
fore  us  suggests  that  the  error  was  harmless.    Louisiana 
does not claim precedent commands an affirmance.  In the 
end, the best anyone can seem to muster against Mr. Ramos 
is that, if we dared to admit in his case what we all know to 
be true about the Sixth Amendment, we might have to say
the same in some others.  But where is the justice in that? 
Every judge must learn to live with the fact he or she will
make some mistakes; it comes with the territory.  But it is 
something  else  entirely  to  perpetuate  something  we  all
know to be wrong only because we fear the consequences of 
being right.  The judgment of the Court of Appeals is 

Reversed.