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Page Number: 58.0

6 

RAMOS v. LOUISIANA 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

a volume on the jury trial was in agreement.  See J. Proffatt, 
Trial by Jury §77, p. 112 (1877). 

* 

* 

* 
Based on this evidence, the Court’s prior interpretation
of  the  Sixth  Amendment’s  guarantee  is  not  demonstrably 
erroneous.  It is within the realm of permissible interpreta-
tions to say that “trial . . . by . . . jury” in that Amendment 
includes  a  protection  against  nonunanimous  felony  guilty 
verdicts. 

II 
The remaining question is whether that right is protected
against the States.  In my view, the Privileges or Immuni-
ties Clause provides this protection.  I do not adhere to this 
Court’s  decisions  applying  due  process  incorporation,  in-
cluding Apodaca and—it seems—the Court’s opinion in this 
case. 

The Privileges or Immunities Clause provides that “[n]o
State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the 
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” 
Amdt. 14, §1.  At the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s 
ratification, “the terms ‘privileges’ and ‘immunities’ had an
established meaning as synonyms of ‘rights.’ ”  McDonald v. 
Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 813 (2010) (THOMAS, J., concurring 
in part and concurring in judgment).  “[T]he ratifying public
understood the Privileges or Immunities Clause to protect 
constitutionally enumerated rights” against abridgment by 
the States.  Id., at 837.  The Sixth Amendment right to a 
trial  by  jury  is  certainly  a  constitutionally  enumerated 
right.  See Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581, 606–608 (1900) 
(Harlan, J., dissenting).

The  Court,  however,  has  made  the  Due  Process  Clause 
serve the function that the Privileges or Immunities Clause 
should  serve.  Although  the  Privileges  or  Immunities 
Clause grants “United States citizens a certain collection of