Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf
Page Number: 76.0

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

15 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

(1966) (Fifth Amendment); Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 
335,  344–345  (1963)  (Sixth  Amendment);  Furman  v. 
Georgia,  408  U. S.  238,  239  (1972)  (per  curiam)  (Eighth
Amendment).25  Are they all now up for grabs?

The  functionalist  criticism  dodges  the  knotty  problem 
that led Justice White to look to the underlying purpose of
the jury-trial right.  Here is the problem.  No one questions 
that  the  Sixth  Amendment  incorporated  the  core  of  the 
common-law  jury-trial  right,  but  did  it  incorporate  every 
feature  of  the  right?    Did  it  constitutionalize  the  require-
ment that there be 12 jurors even though nobody can say 
why 12 is the magic number?  And did it incorporate fea-
tures  that  we  now  find  highly  objectionable,  such  as  the 
exclusion of women from jury service?  At the time of the 
adoption  of  the  Sixth  Amendment  (and  for  many  years 
thereafter),  women  were  not  regarded  as  fit  to  serve  as  a 
defendant’s peers.  Unless one is willing to freeze in place 
late 18th-century practice, it is necessary to find a principle
to distinguish between the features that were incorporated
and those that were not.  To do this, Justice White’s opinion
for the Court in Williams looked to the underlying purpose 
of the jury-trial right,  which it identified as interposing a 
jury of the defendant’s peers to protect against oppression 
by a “ ‘corrupt or overzealous prosecutor’ ” or a “ ‘compliant, 
biased, or eccentric judge.’ ” 399 U. S., at 100 (quoting Dun-
can, 391 U. S., at 156). 

The  majority  decries  this  “functionalist”  approach  but
provides  no  alternative.  It  does  not  claim  that  the  Sixth 
Amendment  incorporated  every  feature  of  common-law 
practice, but it fails to identify any principle for identifying 

—————— 

25 Five Justices in Furman found that the Eighth Amendment imposes 
an evolving standard of decency, 408 U. S., at 255–257 (Douglas, J., con-
curring); id., at 265–269 (Brennan, J., concurring); id., at 309–310 (Stew-
art, J., concurring); id., at  312–314 (White, J., concurring); id., at 316, 
322–333 (Marshall, J., concurring), and our subsequent cases have done
the same.