Ramos v. Louisiana
The Supreme Court overruled a 48-year-old precedent and held that juries in state criminal trials must be unanimous before convicting a defendant — extending a constitutional protection that had always applied in federal courts but that two states, Louisiana and Oregon, had been permitted to bypass.
The ruling stemmed in part from the racist origins of those states' non-unanimous jury rules, adopted in the late 1800s and early 1900s to dilute the votes of Black jurors, and it immediately called into question hundreds of convictions still pending on appeal.
How it got here: Ramos was convicted by a non-unanimous jury in Louisiana; state courts upheld the conviction under Apodaca; the Supreme Court agreed to hear whether Apodaca should be overruled.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Evangelisto Ramos was convicted of second-degree murder in Louisiana by a 10-to-2 jury vote. Federal courts and the courts of 48 states require all 12 jurors to agree before a defendant can be convicted, but Louisiana and Oregon had long allowed verdicts over two dissenting jurors. Ramos argued that the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial has always required unanimity and that his conviction on a split vote was unconstitutional.
The question before the Court
Does the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial require a unanimous verdict before a state court can convict someone of a serious crime?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Sixth Amendment requires unanimous jury verdicts in state criminal trials, and the Court overruled its 1972 decision in Apodaca v. Oregon, which had allowed states to permit non-unanimous convictions. The Court had long recognized unanimity as part of the jury-trial right, and the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to honor that right with the same force it applies in federal courts.
Apodaca had produced no majority opinion: four justices thought unanimity was required in state courts, four thought it was not, and the single deciding vote rested on a unique "dual-track" theory allowing state courts more flexibility than federal courts — a theory no other justice has ever joined and that the Court has since consistently rejected. Finding Apodaca irreconcilably wrong under both the Sixth Amendment's text and established incorporation doctrine, and recognizing its deeply racist origins, the Court concluded there was no adequate reason to keep it on the books.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Defendants in Louisiana and Oregon whose convictions were obtained by non-unanimous juries and whose appeals are still pending will likely be entitled to new trials. Going forward, prosecutors in every state must persuade every juror — a single holdout can no longer be outvoted — giving minority voices on a jury the full weight the Constitution intends.
What changes now
Ramos's conviction is reversed, and defendants in Louisiana and Oregon whose cases are still on direct appeal and who were convicted by non-unanimous juries will likely be entitled to new trials. Louisiana had already largely transitioned to unanimity for newer crimes. Whether today's ruling applies retroactively to prisoners whose convictions are already final — allowing collateral habeas corpus challenges — remains formally unresolved; the Court strongly suggested the Teague non-retroactivity doctrine would block most such claims, but left the question for a future case.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not decide whether it applies retroactively to prisoners whose convictions are already final on direct appeal and who seek new trials through habeas corpus. The Court signaled that established non-retroactivity principles would bar most such claims but reserved the question for another day.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence in part — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor joined all but Part IV-A of the majority and wrote separately to make three points. First, overruling Apodaca was not merely warranted but compelled, because the decision had been analytically indefensible from the start — not because of its functionalist interpretive method, but because it stood alone in conflict with two distinct lines of settled precedent. Second, the reliance interests here are far weaker than those in recent economic overrulings, so the burden of some retrials cannot justify preserving wrong criminal-procedure precedents. Third, the racially biased origins of the Louisiana and Oregon laws — never honestly confronted in later legislative reenactments — uniquely reinforce the case for overruling.
Concurrence in part — Justice Kavanaugh
“The non-unanimous jury operates much the same as the unfettered peremptory challenge, a practice that for many decades likewise functioned as an engine of discrimination against black defendants, victims, and jurors.”Justice Kavanaugh drawing a parallel between non-unanimous juries and racially discriminatory jury selection practices the Court had previously eliminated.
Justice Kavanaugh joined major portions of the majority but wrote separately to articulate a structured three-part stare decisis framework: a prior constitutional decision should be overruled when it is egregiously wrong, has caused significant negative consequences, and overruling would not unduly disrupt reliance interests. Applying these factors, he agreed Apodaca should go — it was wrong on original meaning, its racist origins and ongoing racially discriminatory effects counted as serious negative consequences, and the Teague non-retroactivity doctrine and Louisiana's own constitutional reforms substantially limited the disruption of overruling.
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed Ramos's conviction was unconstitutional but concurred only in the judgment. He would have resolved the Sixth Amendment question by simply applying the Court's long-established, unbroken recognition that unanimity is required — without undertaking fresh historical analysis. More fundamentally, he argued the right should apply against states through the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, not through the Due Process Clause, which he has repeatedly called a constitutional fiction unmoored from the Amendment's actual text.
Dissent — Justice Alito
Justice Alito argued that Apodaca's 48-year-old precedent should have been retained because Louisiana and Oregon had reasonably relied on it in trying thousands of cases, and overruling now imposes a potentially crushing litigation burden — with hundreds of retrials required and no guarantee all cases can be retried. He also objected to the majority's characterization of the laws as racist, arguing both states had reenacted their rules for legitimate, racially neutral reasons in later decades, and that the Court's broad constitutional ruling would apply to any future state regardless of its motives.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court began with the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a 'trial by an impartial jury,' which the Court had consistently interpreted since at least 1898 as requiring every juror to agree on guilt before a defendant can be convicted. Cases spanning more than seven decades had repeatedly stated that unanimity was a core feature of the constitutional jury-trial right.
- The Court then applied its incorporation doctrine — the principle, rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment, that states must honor most Bill of Rights guarantees with the same force they apply against the federal government. Since 1968, the Sixth Amendment jury-trial right had been held to apply to state courts, and the Court's post-Apodaca cases had consistently held that incorporated rights operate identically in state and federal proceedings.
- Apodaca v. Oregon (1972) produced a fractured 4-1-4 result with no majority. Four justices concluded unanimity was required in state courts; four concluded states had more flexibility; and the single deciding Justice, Justice Powell, rested his vote on a 'dual-track' incorporation theory — allowing state courts a lesser version of the same constitutional right — that no other justice had ever endorsed and that conflicted with the Court's settled approach to incorporation.
- Applying its stare decisis framework — the doctrine requiring strong justification before overruling prior decisions — the Court found Apodaca egregiously wrong as a matter of law. It conflicted with both the original meaning of the Sixth Amendment and the Court's repeated statements that unanimity was required, and it rested entirely on an incorporation theory the Court had elsewhere rejected. A decision irreconcilable with two distinct lines of constitutional precedent does not deserve the protection stare decisis is designed to provide.
- The racist origins of Louisiana's and Oregon's non-unanimous jury rules added further weight. Louisiana adopted its practice in 1898 expressly to dilute the influence of Black jurors, who had recently won the right to serve; neither state's legislature ever seriously reckoned with that history when later reenacting the rules. The Court found this history relevant both to whether the laws served legitimate purposes and to whether the precedent permitting them should stand.
- Finally, the Court found reliance interests insufficient to preserve Apodaca. Only two states were affected, Louisiana had already amended its constitution to require unanimity for crimes committed after January 1, 2019, and the established Teague non-retroactivity doctrine — which generally prevents new constitutional rules from being applied to reopen final convictions through habeas corpus — would limit the disruption of overruling to cases still on direct appeal.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Overrules Apodaca v. Oregon (406 U.S. 404)
The 1972 ruling allowing state courts to convict defendants with non-unanimous jury votes is nullified; unanimity is now required in all state criminal trials.