In Ramos v. Louisiana, No. 18-5924 (April 20, 2020), the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit, holding that “the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial—as incorporated against the States by way of the Fourteenth Amendment—requires a unanimous verdict to convict a defendant of a serious offense.” The case arose when Evangelisto Ramos was convicted of a serious crime by a 10-to-2 jury verdict in state court in Louisiana—which, along with Oregon, was one of only two states that did not require a unanimous verdict—and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In a splintered opinion, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing for the majority, concluded that there could be “no question [ ] that the Sixth Amendment’s unanimity requirement applie[d] to state and federal criminal trials equally.” He explained that the Court had long recognized that the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by an impartial jury required unanimity, and that “[t]his Court has long explained, too, that incorporated provisions of the Bill of Rights bear the same content when asserted against States as they do when asserted against the federal government.” Justice Gorsuch reasoned, inter alia, that the origins of Oregon’s and Louisiana’s allowance of non-unanimous jury verdicts had been racially motivated, and determined that the Court had to overrule Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972)—a 4-1-4 decision upholding a non-unanimous verdict in Oregon state court—that Justice Gorsuch, along with Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, argued was not a precedent at all.
Concurring in part, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh agreed with the Court that Apodaca should be overruled, and wrote separately to provide his view of how stare decisis applied to this case. While explaining that racial discrimination provided the origins of the non-unanimous jury verdict, Justice Kavanaugh noted that “one could advocate for and justify a non-unanimous jury rule by resort to neutral and legitimate principles,” pointing out that “various legal organization in the United States have at times championed non-unanimous juries,” citing, among other things, The American Law Institute’s Code of Criminal Procedure § 355 (1930).
Dissenting, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan, argued against overruling Apodaca, because Louisiana’s and Oregon’s reliance interests favored upholding the decision. The dissent further argued that the reasons Louisiana and Oregon had initially adopted their rules should not have been relevant to this Court’s decision, “because both States readopted their rules under different circumstances in later years” and there were legitimate reasons why allowing non-unanimous jury verdicts could be good policy. In support of this argument, the dissent cited the Constitution of Puerto Rico, British Parliament, the American Bar Association, and ALI’s Code of Criminal Procedure § 355, which, at one time, had all advocated for non-unanimous verdicts.
Read the full opinion here.