Ramos v. Louisiana | |
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Argued October 7, 2019 Decided April 20, 2020 | |
Full case name | Evangelisto Ramos, Petitioner v. Louisiana |
Docket no. | 18-5924 |
Citations | 590 U.S. 83 (more) 140 S. Ct. 1390, 206 L.Ed.2d 583 |
Argument | Oral argument |
Case history | |
Prior |
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Questions presented | |
Whether the Fourteenth Amendment fully incorporates the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a unanimous verdict. | |
Holding | |
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. Louisiana Court of Appeal, Fourth Circuit reversed. | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Gorsuch (Parts I, II–A, III, and IV–B–1), joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh |
Plurality | Gorsuch (Parts II–B, IV–B–2, and V), joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor |
Plurality | Gorsuch (Part IV–A), joined by Ginsburg, Breyer |
Concurrence | Sotomayor (all but Part IV–A) |
Concurrence | Kavanaugh (in part) |
Concurrence | Thomas (in judgment) |
Dissent | Alito, joined by Roberts; Kagan (all but Part III–D) |
Laws applied | |
U.S. Const. amends. VI, XIV | |
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings | |
Apodaca v. Oregon (1972) (plurality opinion), Johnson v. Louisiana (1972) (Powell, J., concurring) |
Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83 (2020), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that guilty verdicts be unanimous in criminal trials. See 590 U.S. 83 at 90 (2020) "Wherever we might look to determine what the term “trial by an impartial jury” meant at the time of the Sixth Amendment's adoption—whether it's the common law, state practices in the founding era, or opinions and treatises written soon afterward—the answer is unmistakable. A jury must reach a unanimous verdict in order to convict." Only cases in Oregon and Louisiana were affected by the ruling because every other state already had this requirement. The decision incorporated the Sixth Amendment requirement for unanimous jury criminal convictions against the states, and thereby overturned the Court's previous decision from the 1972 cases Apodaca v. Oregon[1][2] and Johnson v. Louisiana.[3]