Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-5924_n6io.pdf
Page Number: 16.0

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

13 

Opinion of the Court 

“other accustomed requisites” associated with the common 
law  jury  trial  right—i.e.,  everything  history  might  have
taught us about what it means to have a jury trial.  Taking 
the State’s argument from drafting history to its logical con-
clusion would thus leave the right to a “trial by jury” devoid
of  meaning.  A  right  mentioned  twice  in  the  Constitution
would be reduced to an empty promise.  That can’t be right.
Faced with this hard fact, Louisiana’s only remaining op-
tion is to invite us to distinguish between the historic fea-
tures of common law jury trials that (we think) serve “im-
portant enough” functions to migrate silently into the Sixth
Amendment and those that don’t.  And, on the State’s ac-
count,  we  should  conclude  that  unanimity  isn’t  worthy 
enough to make the trip. 

But to see the dangers of Louisiana’s overwise approach,
there’s  no  need  to  look  any  further  than  Apodaca  itself. 
There,  four  Justices,  pursuing  the  functionalist  approach
Louisiana  espouses,  began  by  describing  the  “ ‘essential’ ” 
benefit of a jury trial as “ ‘the interposition . . . of the com-
monsense judgment of a group of laymen’ ” between the de-
fendant  and  the  possibility  of  an  “ ‘overzealous  prosecu-
tor.’ ”41  And measured against that muddy yardstick, they
quickly concluded that requiring 12 rather than 10 votes to
convict  offers  no  meaningful  improvement.42   Meanwhile, 
these Justices argued, States have good and important rea-
sons for dispensing with unanimity, such as seeking to re-
duce the rate of hung juries.43 

Who  can  profess  confidence  in  a  breezy  cost-benefit
analysis like that?  Lost in the accounting are the racially 
discriminatory reasons that Louisiana and Oregon adopted 

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41 406 U. S., at 410 (plurality opinion) (quoting Williams v. Florida, 399 

U. S. 78, 100 (1970), and Duncan, 391 U. S., at 156). 

42 406 U. S., at 410–411. 
43 Id., at 411.