Petitioners
Robert Apodaca, Henry Morgan Cooper, Jr., and James Arnold Madden
Respondent
State of Oregon
Petitioners' Claim
That the conviction by a less than unanimous jury verdict, permitted under Oregon state law, violated his right to trial by jury as guaranteed under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioners
Richard B. Sobol
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Jacob B. Tanzer, Solicitor General of Oregon
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, Byron R. White (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Potter Stewart
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
22 May 1972
Decision
That the Fourteenth Amendment does not require jury unanimity.
Significance
As a result of the Court's decision in Apodaca v. Oregon state court juries were able to convict defendants on the basis of a less than unanimous vote.
In 1969, an Oregon jury convicted Robert Apodaca for assault with a deadly weapon. Likewise two other juries convicted Henry Morgan Cooper, Jr., of burglary in a dwelling, and James Arnold Madden of grand larceny. But there was something unusual about these juries: in none of the trials was the vote unanimous. It was 11-1 in both Apodaca's and Madden's cases; and in Cooper's situation, the margin was 10-2, the minimum vote whereby a conviction could be obtained under Oregon state law.
At one time, it had been assumed that unless a jury could fully agree to convict a defendant, he or she could not be found guilty. This was thought necessary in order to ensure that the 12 members of the jury made their conviction"beyond all reasonable doubt." Presumably if one or two people could not agree with the majority, this suggested that reasonable doubt was possible. The Supreme Court itself had upheld this position in Duncan v. Louisiana (1968), when the majority took the position that criminal charges must be "confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve jurors."
However, by the time Apodaca and the others brought their case before the U.S. Supreme Court, having been denied appeal by the Supreme Court of Oregon, the concept of jury unanimity was no longer a given. Already the Court, in Williams v. Florida (1970) had called into question the commonly acceptednotion that a jury should consist of 12 people. Now it was about to considerthe assumption that to be fair, a jury's verdict must be unanimous. It was aquestion that would be decided in two 1972 cases, Johnson v. Louisianaand Apodaca v. Oregon.
The Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment Cases
The appellants' legal counsel made a case under both the Sixth and the Fourteenth amendments, seeking to prove that the use of a verdict obtained by a nonunanimous jury violated a defendant's constitutional rights. The two amendments both concern the conduct of courts in handling criminal trials, but the similarity ends there. The Sixth Amendment was ratified, along with the other nine amendments that make up the Bill of Rights, in 1791, and it applies chiefly to the federal government, ensuring that federal courts do not violate therights of American citizens. The Fourteenth, on the other hand, became a part of the American legal environment on the heels of the Civil War. It was, along with the amendments that directly preceded and followed it, a part of the"Reconstruction Amendments," and was directed chiefly at the states, to ensure that courts in the former slave-holding states of the South did not violate the civil rights of former slaves.
In fact, as Justice White observed, writing for the plurality that upheld theOregon court's judgment in Apodaca, the Fourteenth Amendment ensuredthat the Sixth Amendment was applied to the states. But where White disagreedwith the appellants was in their claim that the Sixth Amendment required jury unanimity in order to protect the standard of reasonable doubt, andto uphold the "due process of law" mandated in the Fourteenth Amendment. Thereasonable doubt standard, in fact, is not an actual part of the Constitution; rather, it is implied in the Fourteenth Amendment. And, White noted, the reasonable doubt argument for a unanimous jury had recently been rejected by the Court in the companion case of Johnson v. Louisiana.
The petitioners had further argued that, because the Fourteenth Amendment requires jury panels which represent the community as a whole, a jury which votes to convict by a less than unanimous decision has automatically excluded thecommunity's minority elements. White, again speaking for the plurality, rejected that claim on two bases. First of all, he said, the Constitution does not state that "every distinct voice in the community has a right to be represented on every jury"; rather, it merely forbids "systematic exclusion of identifiable segments of the community from jury panels and from the juries ultimately drawn from those panels." Also, White and the other justices voting withhim (Chief Justice Burger and Justices Blackmun and Rehnquist) rejected thepetitioners' implied assumption that the majority elements of a community would necessarily vote on the basis of ethnic prejudice, or that the jury majority's ability to outvote the minority in itself implied such prejudice.
A Less Than Unanimous Court
It is ironic that this case concerning unanimous jury decisions should itselfhave been decided by a far from unanimous Court. On the one side was White'sfaction, which ultimately won; on the other side were Justices Stewart, Brennan, Marshall, and Douglas. Justice Powell's decision was the deciding vote.
The dissenters held, in Justice Stewart's words, that "Until today, it has been universally understood that a unanimous verdict is an essential part of aSixth Amendment jury trial." Citing an array of cases, the dissenting justices established the necessity for a unanimous jury as a key element in a fair trial. They followed what might be considered a common-sense line of reasoning, based on the idea that lifting the unanimity requirement makes it easier for a jury to convict a defendant-- and thus increases the chance that an innocent person may be convicted.
Justice Powell agreed with parts of both arguments. He sided with Stewart's group in holding that the Sixth Amendment required federal juries to be unanimous. But Apodaca's case concerned a state court, and thus the Fourteenth Amendment appeared to be a more significant element of the argument. And on thatissue, Powell agreed with White's group, that the Fourteenth Amendment did not prevent states from allowing nonunanimous juries. Like White, he did not believe that permitting a jury majority of 11-1 or 10-2 necessarily meant thatethnic minorities' constitutional rights would be violated.
At the time, Apodaca v. Oregon raised fears among some, suggesting a future in which states would be able to alter their standards to permit jurieswith 9-3 or even smaller margins to convict defendants. But twenty-five years after Apodaca, few states had adopted the nonunanimity rule, and theSupreme Court itself had further questioned the idea in Ballew v. Georgia (1978).
Related Cases
Robert Apodaca, Henry Morgan Cooper, Jr., and James Arnold Madden
Respondent
State of Oregon
Petitioners' Claim
That the conviction by a less than unanimous jury verdict, permitted under Oregon state law, violated his right to trial by jury as guaranteed under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioners
Richard B. Sobol
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Jacob B. Tanzer, Solicitor General of Oregon
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, Byron R. White (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Potter Stewart
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
22 May 1972
Decision
That the Fourteenth Amendment does not require jury unanimity.
Significance
As a result of the Court's decision in Apodaca v. Oregon state court juries were able to convict defendants on the basis of a less than unanimous vote.
In 1969, an Oregon jury convicted Robert Apodaca for assault with a deadly weapon. Likewise two other juries convicted Henry Morgan Cooper, Jr., of burglary in a dwelling, and James Arnold Madden of grand larceny. But there was something unusual about these juries: in none of the trials was the vote unanimous. It was 11-1 in both Apodaca's and Madden's cases; and in Cooper's situation, the margin was 10-2, the minimum vote whereby a conviction could be obtained under Oregon state law.
At one time, it had been assumed that unless a jury could fully agree to convict a defendant, he or she could not be found guilty. This was thought necessary in order to ensure that the 12 members of the jury made their conviction"beyond all reasonable doubt." Presumably if one or two people could not agree with the majority, this suggested that reasonable doubt was possible. The Supreme Court itself had upheld this position in Duncan v. Louisiana (1968), when the majority took the position that criminal charges must be "confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve jurors."
However, by the time Apodaca and the others brought their case before the U.S. Supreme Court, having been denied appeal by the Supreme Court of Oregon, the concept of jury unanimity was no longer a given. Already the Court, in Williams v. Florida (1970) had called into question the commonly acceptednotion that a jury should consist of 12 people. Now it was about to considerthe assumption that to be fair, a jury's verdict must be unanimous. It was aquestion that would be decided in two 1972 cases, Johnson v. Louisianaand Apodaca v. Oregon.
The Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment Cases
The appellants' legal counsel made a case under both the Sixth and the Fourteenth amendments, seeking to prove that the use of a verdict obtained by a nonunanimous jury violated a defendant's constitutional rights. The two amendments both concern the conduct of courts in handling criminal trials, but the similarity ends there. The Sixth Amendment was ratified, along with the other nine amendments that make up the Bill of Rights, in 1791, and it applies chiefly to the federal government, ensuring that federal courts do not violate therights of American citizens. The Fourteenth, on the other hand, became a part of the American legal environment on the heels of the Civil War. It was, along with the amendments that directly preceded and followed it, a part of the"Reconstruction Amendments," and was directed chiefly at the states, to ensure that courts in the former slave-holding states of the South did not violate the civil rights of former slaves.
In fact, as Justice White observed, writing for the plurality that upheld theOregon court's judgment in Apodaca, the Fourteenth Amendment ensuredthat the Sixth Amendment was applied to the states. But where White disagreedwith the appellants was in their claim that the Sixth Amendment required jury unanimity in order to protect the standard of reasonable doubt, andto uphold the "due process of law" mandated in the Fourteenth Amendment. Thereasonable doubt standard, in fact, is not an actual part of the Constitution; rather, it is implied in the Fourteenth Amendment. And, White noted, the reasonable doubt argument for a unanimous jury had recently been rejected by the Court in the companion case of Johnson v. Louisiana.
The petitioners had further argued that, because the Fourteenth Amendment requires jury panels which represent the community as a whole, a jury which votes to convict by a less than unanimous decision has automatically excluded thecommunity's minority elements. White, again speaking for the plurality, rejected that claim on two bases. First of all, he said, the Constitution does not state that "every distinct voice in the community has a right to be represented on every jury"; rather, it merely forbids "systematic exclusion of identifiable segments of the community from jury panels and from the juries ultimately drawn from those panels." Also, White and the other justices voting withhim (Chief Justice Burger and Justices Blackmun and Rehnquist) rejected thepetitioners' implied assumption that the majority elements of a community would necessarily vote on the basis of ethnic prejudice, or that the jury majority's ability to outvote the minority in itself implied such prejudice.
A Less Than Unanimous Court
It is ironic that this case concerning unanimous jury decisions should itselfhave been decided by a far from unanimous Court. On the one side was White'sfaction, which ultimately won; on the other side were Justices Stewart, Brennan, Marshall, and Douglas. Justice Powell's decision was the deciding vote.
The dissenters held, in Justice Stewart's words, that "Until today, it has been universally understood that a unanimous verdict is an essential part of aSixth Amendment jury trial." Citing an array of cases, the dissenting justices established the necessity for a unanimous jury as a key element in a fair trial. They followed what might be considered a common-sense line of reasoning, based on the idea that lifting the unanimity requirement makes it easier for a jury to convict a defendant-- and thus increases the chance that an innocent person may be convicted.
Justice Powell agreed with parts of both arguments. He sided with Stewart's group in holding that the Sixth Amendment required federal juries to be unanimous. But Apodaca's case concerned a state court, and thus the Fourteenth Amendment appeared to be a more significant element of the argument. And on thatissue, Powell agreed with White's group, that the Fourteenth Amendment did not prevent states from allowing nonunanimous juries. Like White, he did not believe that permitting a jury majority of 11-1 or 10-2 necessarily meant thatethnic minorities' constitutional rights would be violated.
At the time, Apodaca v. Oregon raised fears among some, suggesting a future in which states would be able to alter their standards to permit jurieswith 9-3 or even smaller margins to convict defendants. But twenty-five years after Apodaca, few states had adopted the nonunanimity rule, and theSupreme Court itself had further questioned the idea in Ballew v. Georgia (1978).
Related Cases
- Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968).
- Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78 (1970).
- Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. 356 (1972).
- Ballew v. Georgia, 435 U.S. 223 (1978).
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