The ruling eliminates the final vestiges of a practice with roots in the Jim Crow era that critics say was aimed at diluting the influence of minorities on juries.
joined Gorsuch’s opinion. Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in the judgment but offered his own rationale.
“There can be no question,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority, “that the Sixth Amendment’s unanimity requirement applies to state and federal criminal trials equally.” “Today, Louisiana’s and Oregon’s laws are fully—and rightly—relegated to the dustbin of history,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a concurring opinion. “While overruling precedent must be rare, this Court should not shy away from correcting its errors where the right to avoid imprisonment pursuant to unconstitutional procedures hangs in the balance.”
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan dissented in the case, arguing that the Court’s precedent should not have been so easily discarded.
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