Thomas R. Newman and Steven J. Ahmuty Jr.
Last term, in Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. ___, 140 S. Ct. 1390 (2020), the U.S. Supreme Court held by a 6-3 vote that the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury, as incorporated against the states by way of the 14th Amendment, requires a unanimous verdict to convict a defendant of a serious offense in a state criminal trial. Ramos overruled Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972), in which a plurality of the court held that the Sixth Amendment required unanimous jury verdicts in federal trials but not state trials.
The ruling in Ramos was significant not only for defendants who had been convicted by nonunanimous juries in Louisiana and Oregon—which were the only two states that still allowed nonunanimous verdicts—but also for its valuable insights into the individual Justices’ views on the doctrine of stare decisis, by which courts normally adhere to precedent. The Justices in Ramos were deeply divided as to what constitutes “precedent” and when it is appropriate to overrule it. See Newman and Ahmuty, “U.S. Supreme Court Debates Stare Decisis Principles,” NYLJ (May 5, 2020).
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