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Page Number: 71.0

10 

RAMOS v. LOUISIANA 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

viewed as that position taken by those Members who con-
curred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.”  Id., at 
193 (internal quotation marks omitted).  This rule ascribes 
precedential  status  to  decisions  made  without  majority
agreement on the underlying rationale, and it is therefore 
squarely contrary to the argument of the three Justices who 
regard Apodaca as non-precedential.

The Marks rule is controversial, and two Terms ago, we
granted review in a case that implicated its meaning.  See 
Hughes v. United States, 584 U. S. ___ (2018).  But we ulti-
mately  decided  the  case  on  another  ground  and  left  the 
Marks  rule intact.  As long as that rule stands, it refutes 
the argument that Apodaca is not binding because a major-
ity did not agree on a common rationale.

Finally, our three colleagues contend that treating Apo-
daca as a precedent would require the Court “to embrace a 
new and dubious proposition: that a single Justice writing 
only for himself has the authority to bind this Court to prop-
ositions  it  has  already  rejected.”  Ante,  at  16.    This  argu-
ment  appears  to  weave  together  three  separate  questions 
relating  to  the  precedential  effect  of  decisions  in  which
there is no majority opinion.  I will therefore attempt to un-
tangle these questions and address each in turn. 

An initial question is whether, in a case where there is no
opinion of the Court, the position taken by a single Justice
in the majority can constitute the binding rule for which the 
decision  stands.    Under  Marks,  the  clear  answer  to  this 
question is yes.  The logic of Marks applies equally no mat-
ter what the division of the Justices in the majority, and I 
am aware of no case holding that the Marks rule is inappli-
cable when the narrowest ground is supported by only one
Justice.  Certainly the lower courts have understood Marks 
to apply in that situation.14 

—————— 

14 See Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 321 (2003) (discussing lower 
court’s treatment of Justice Powell’s opinion in Regents of Univ. of Cal.