Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf
Page Number: 45

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

11 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in part 

ment jury trial right against the States.  See Duncan v. Lou-
isiana, 391 U. S. 145, 149 (1968); id., at 166 (Black, J., con-
curring); see also Malloy, 378 U. S., at 10–11; see generally 
Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U. S. ___ (2019); McDonald v. Chi-
cago, 561 U. S. 742 (2010).  When Apodaca was decided, it 
was  already  an  outlier  in  the  Court’s  jurisprudence,  and 
over  time  it  has  become  even  more  of  an  outlier.    As  the 
Court today persuasively explains, the original meaning of
the  Sixth  and  Fourteenth  Amendments  and  this  Court’s 
two  lines  of  decisions—the  Sixth  Amendment  jury  cases 
and the Fourteenth Amendment incorporation cases—over-
whelmingly  demonstrate  that  Apodaca’s  holding  is  egre-
giously wrong.6 

—————— 

6 Notwithstanding the splintered 4–1–4 decision in Apodaca, its bottom-
line result carried precedential force.  In the American system of stare 
decisis, the result and the reasoning each independently have preceden-
tial force, and courts are therefore bound to follow both the result and 
the reasoning of a prior decision.  See Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 
517  U. S.  44,  67  (1996);  Randall  v.  Sorrell,  548  U. S.  230,  243  (2006) 
(opinion of BREYER, J.); County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties 
Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573, 668 (1989) (Kennedy, 
J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part).  The result of 
Apodaca  was  that  state  criminal  juries  need  not  be  unanimous.    That 
precedential result has been followed by this Court and the other federal 
and state courts for the last 48 years.  To be sure, Apodaca had no ma-
jority opinion.  When the Court’s decision is splintered, courts follow the 
result, and they also follow the reasoning or standards set forth in the 
opinion constituting the “narrowest grounds” of the Justices in the ma-
jority.  See Marks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188, 193 (1977).  That Marks 
rule is ordinarily commonsensical to apply and usually means that courts
in essence heed the opinion that occupies the middle-ground position be-
tween  (i)  the  broadest  opinion  among the  Justices  in  the  majority  and 
(ii) the dissenting opinion.  See United States v. Duvall, 740 F. 3d 604, 
610–611 (CADC 2013) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in denial of rehearing
en  banc).    On  very  rare  occasions,  as  in  Apodaca,  it  can  be  difficult  to 
discern which opinion’s reasoning has precedential effect under Marks. 
See also Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738, 745–746 (1994) (analyz-
ing  Baldasar  v.  Illinois,  446  U. S.  222  (1980)  (per  curiam)).  But  even 
when that happens, the result of the decision still constitutes a binding 
precedent for the federal and state courts, and for this Court, unless and