The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied all but one of this amendment's protections to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution creates several constitutional rights, limiting governmental powers focusing on criminal procedures. It was ratified, along with nine other articles, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.
Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (1980), is a United States Supreme Court decision dealing with the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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 a less-than-unanimous verdict in a felony criminal case. 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. Although federal law requires federal juries to reach criminal verdicts unanimously, the Court held Oregon's practice did not violate the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury and so allowed it to continue. In Johnson v. Louisiana, a case decided on the same day, the Court held that Louisiana's similar practice of allowing criminal convictions by a jury vote of 9–3 did not violate due process or equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
United States criminal procedure derives from several sources of law: the baseline protections of the United States Constitution; federal and state statutes; federal and state rules of criminal procedure ; and state and federal case law. Criminal procedures are distinct from civil procedures in the US.
Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436 (1970), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that "when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit." The Double Jeopardy Clause prevents a state from relitigating a question already decided in favor of a defendant at a previous trial. Here, the guarantee against double jeopardy enforceable through the Fifth Amendment provided that where the defendant was acquitted of robbing one victim, the government could not prosecute the criminal defendant in a second trial for a different victim in the same robbery.
Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609 (1965), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled, by a 6–2 vote, that it is a violation of a defendant's Fifth Amendment rights for the prosecutor to comment to the jury on the defendant's declining to testify, or for the judge to instruct the jury that such silence is evidence of guilt.
Burch v. Louisiana, 441 U.S. 130 (1979), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court that invalidated a Louisiana statute allowing a conviction upon a nonunanimous verdict from a jury of six for a petty offense. The statute allowed for conviction if only five jurors agreed, and this was held to be a violation of the Sixth Amendment.
A citizen's right to a trial by jury is a central feature of the United States Constitution. It is considered a fundamental principle of the American legal system.
Wainwright vs. Witt, 469 U.S. 412 (1985), was a U.S. Supreme Court case concerning a criminal defendant, Johnny Paul Witt, who argued that his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when he was sentenced to death for first degree murder by the state of Florida. He argued that the trial court had unconstitutionally hand-picked a jury during the voir dire process. This was because certain people were excused from the jury because they admitted pre-trial, that their decision of guilty or not guilty toward capital punishment would be swayed due to personal or religious beliefs.
The United States Constitution contains several provisions regarding the law of criminal procedure.
The Vicinage Clause is a provision in the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution regulating the vicinity from which a jury pool may be selected. The clause says that the accused shall be entitled to an "impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law". The Vicinage Clause limits the vicinity of criminal jury selection to both the state and the federal judicial district where the crime has been committed. This is distinct from the venue provision of Article Three of the United States Constitution, which regulates the location of the actual trial.
The United States Constitution contains several provisions related to criminal sentencing.
Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U.S. 524 (1973), was a United States Supreme Court decision concerning examinations of prospective jurors during voir dire. The Court held that the trial court's failure to "have the jurors interrogated on the issue of racial bias" violated the petitioner's due process right under the Fourteenth Amendment. This right does not extend to any question of bias, but it does not preclude questions of relevant biases.
Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400 (1988), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that defense witnesses can be prevented from testifying under certain circumstances, even if that hurts the defense's case. Taylor was the first case to hold that there is no absolute bar to blocking the testimony of a surprise witness, even if that is an essential witness for the defendant, a limitation of the broad right to present a defense recognized in Washington v. Texas (1967).
Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U.S. 581 (1900), is a United States Supreme Court decision which addressed two questions relating to the Due Process Clause. First, whether Utah's practice of allowing prosecutors to directly file criminal charges without a grand jury were consistent with due process, and second, whether Utah's use of eight jurors instead of twelve in "courts of general jurisdiction" were constitutional.
Kansas v. Cheever, 571 U.S. 87 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court case in which a unanimous Court held that the Fifth Amendment does not prevent the prosecution from introducing psychiatric evidence to rebut psychiatric evidence presented by the defense.
Hurst v. Florida, 577 U.S. 92 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court, in an 8–1 ruling, applied the rule of Ring v. Arizona to the Florida capital sentencing scheme, holding that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to find the aggravating factors necessary for imposing the death penalty. In Florida, under a 2013 statute, the jury made recommendations but the judge decided the facts.
Bell v. Cone, 535 U.S. 685 (2002), was a Supreme Court of the United States case that upheld a death sentence despite the defendant's argument that he should not be sentenced to death because he was suffering from drug-induced psychosis when he committed the crimes. Cone also argued that he was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to present sufficient mitigating evidence during the sentencing phase of his trial and that his attorney inappropriately waived his final argument during the sentencing phase. In an 8–1 opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the United States Supreme Court denied Cone's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The Court held that the actions taken by Cone's attorney during the sentencing phase were "tactical decisions" and that the state courts that denied Cone's appeals did not unreasonably apply clearly established law. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that Cone was denied effective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to "subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing."
Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U. S. 356 (1972), was a court case in the U.S. Supreme Court involving the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Louisiana law that allowed less-than unanimous jury verdicts to convict persons charged with a felony, does not violate the Due Process clause. This case was argued on a similar basis as Apodaca v. Oregon.
