Duncan v. Louisiana

Noticing possible violations of Duncan's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear the case and arguments began on 17 January 1968. Since the majority held that the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed all citizens the first eight amendment rights, including the Sixth Amendment's, in state criminal trials and proceedings, it considered whether the right to a jury trial constituted "a fundamental right, essential to a fair trial" as it held in Gideon v. Wainwright and other cases.

Having established that the right to trial by jury existed prior to the Constitution and was an important consideration in the authoring of the Constitution with an amendment devoted to it, the Court concluded that trial by jury was an essential component of the country's justice system. Furthermore, the Court noted that all state constitutions, including Louisiana's, granted trials by jury for all serious offenses.

The majority next attempted to determine if Duncan's deed constituted a serious or petty offense under Louisiana law. The state argued that Duncan's crime--simple battery--was only a petty offense in that the judge sentenced him to 60 days in prison. However, the Court noted that the Louisiana Legislature set the maximum penalty for simple battery at two years plus a fine. Consequently, Duncan faced a two-year prison sentence at the time of the trial. The Court compared the sentences for petty crimes in different states and at the federal level and found that many state--as well as federal--petty crimes carry a maximum six-month prison sentence and that 49 states impose no more than a one-year prison sentence for petty offenses. Therefore, in the 7-2 decision, the Court concluded that the state charged Duncan with a serious offense and denied him a jury trial, which the Fourteenth Amendment and the Louisiana Constitution guaranteed, and reversed Duncan's conviction. The Court stated:

It is sufficient for our purposes to hold that a crime punishable by two years in prison is, based on past and contemporary standards in this country, a serious crime and not a petty offense. Consequently, appellant was entitled to a jury trial and it was [an] error to deny it.

The two justices who dissented, however, maintained that the Constitution did not ban a judge alone from trying and sentencing someone for simple battery. Justices Harlan and Stewart felt the history and role of the jury trial was not at stake in the case, but the responsibility of running state criminal justice systems was. They held that the Fourteenth Amendment mandates that trials must be fair in all respects, but not that the states must uniformly provide jury trials. These justices argued that Fourteenth Amendment did not simply apply the first eight amendments to the states and that a jury trial was not necessary for a fair trial.

Despite the straightforward opinion of the Court in Duncan v. Louisiana that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the right to jury trials for all serious crimes, later Court decisions strayed from the thrust of the majority's argument, upholding decisions where judges denied jury trials and jury participation in sentencing. For example, in Spaziano v. Florida the Court ruled that a judge, not a jury, may impose a death sentence under Florida law.