Apodaca v. Oregon

Apodaca v. Oregon
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 1, 1971 Reargued January 10, 1972 Decided May 22, 1972
Full case name	Robert Apodaca et al. v. State of Oregon
Citations	406 U.S. 404 (more) 92 S. Ct. 1628; 32 L. Ed. 2d 184
Argument	Oral argument
Reargument	Reargument
Opinion announcement	Opinion announcement
Case history
Prior	State v. Plumes, 1 Or. App. 483; 462 P.2d 691 (1969); cert. granted, 400 U.S. 901 (1970).
Holding
There is no constitutional right to a unanimous jury verdict in non-federal criminal cases. Thus Oregon's law did not violate due process. (plurality opinion)
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority	White, joined by Burger, Blackmun, Rehnquist
Concurrence	Powell
Dissent	Douglas, joined by Brennan, Marshall
Dissent	Brennan, joined by Marshall
Dissent	Stewart, joined by Brennan, Marshall
Dissent	Marshall, joined by Brennan

Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that state juries may convict a defendant by less than unanimity even though federal law required that federal juries must reach criminal verdicts unanimously. The four-justice plurality opinion of the court, written by Justice White, affirmed the judgment of the Oregon Court of Appeals, and held that there was no constitutional right to a unanimous verdict. Thus Oregon's law did not violate due process.

Justice Powell, in his concurring opinion, argued that there was such a constitutional right in the Sixth Amendment, but that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause does not incorporate that right as applied to the states.

This case is part of a line of cases interpreting if and how the Sixth Amendment is applied against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment for the purposes of incorporation doctrine, although the division of opinions prevented a clear-cut answer to that question in this case.

Arguing the case for the state of Oregon were Jacob Tanzer and Lee Johnson; both would later serve on the Oregon Court of Appeals.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 406

Further reading

• Jacobsohn, Gary J. (1977). "The Unanimous Verdict Politics and the Jury Trial". Washington University Law Quarterly. 1977 (1): 39–57.
• Saks, Michael J. (1977). Jury Verdicts: The Role of Group Size and Social Decision Rule. Lexington: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0669011005. NCJ 42103.

External links

• Text of Apodaca v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404 (1972) is available from: Findlaw Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio)