Court Opinion

ID: 9424324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:11:15.269558+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:49.644632
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Black,
with whom Mr. Justice Douglas joins,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree that the appellant here was entitled to a trial by jury in a New York City court for an offense punishable by one year’s,imprisonment. I also agree that his right to a trial by jury was governed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. I disagree, however, with the view that a defendant’s right to a jury trial under the Sixth Amendment is determined by whether the offense charged is a “petty” or “serious” one. The Constitution guarantees a right of trial by jury in two separate places but in neither does it hint of any difference between “petty” offenses and “serious” offenses. Article III, § 2, cl. 3, provides that “[t]he Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury,” and Amendment VI provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall *75enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed . . . Thus the Constitution itself guarantees a jury trial “[i]n all criminal prosecutions” and for “all crimes.” Many years ago this Court, without the necessity of an amendment pursuant to Article V, decided that “all crimes” did not mean “all crimes,” but meant only “all serious crimes.”1 Today three members of the Court would judicially amend that judicial amendment and substitute the phrase “all crimes in which punishment for more than six months is authorized.” This definition of “serious” would be enacted even though those members themselves recognize that imprisonment for less than six months may still have serious consequences. This decision is reached by weighing the advantages to the defendant against the administrative inconvenience to the State inherent in a jury trial and magically concluding that the scale tips at six months' imprisonment. Such constitutional adjudication, whether framed in terms of “fundamental fairness,” “balancing,” or “shocking the conscience,” amounts in every case to little more than judicial mutilation of our written Constitution. Those who wrote and adopted our Constitution and Bill of Rights engaged in all the balancing necessary. They decided that the value of a jury trial far outweighed its costs for “all crimes” and “ [i] n all criminal prosecutions.” Until that language is changed by the constitutionally prescribed method of amendment, I cannot agree that this Court can reassess the balance and substitute its own judgment for that embodied in the Constitution. Since there can be no doubt in this case that Baldwin was charged with and convicted of a “crime” in any relevant sense *76of that word — I agree that his conviction must be reversed because he was convicted without the benefit of a jury trial.2

 My view does not require a conclusion that every act which may lead to “minuscule” sanctions by the Government is a “crime” which can only be punished after a jury trial. See Frank v. United States, 395 U. S. 147, 159-160 (1969) (dissenting opinion). There may be instances in which certain conduct is punished by fines or other sanctions in circumstances that would not make that conduct criminal. Not all official sanctions are imposed in criminal proceedings, but when, as in this case, the sanction bears all the indicia of a criminal punishment, a jury trial cannot be denied by labeling the punishment “petty.”

 See Callan v. Wilson, 127 U. S. 540 (1888); District of Columbia v. Colts, 282 U. S. 63 (1930); District of Columbia v. Clawans, 300 U. S. 617 (1937); cf. Schick v. United States, 195 U. S. 65 (1904).