Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution

“ A defendant has no Sixth Amendment right to spend another person's money for services rendered by an attorney, even if those funds are the only way that that defendant will be able to retain the attorney of his choice. A robbery suspect, for example, has no Sixth Amendment right to use funds he has stolen from a bank to retain an attorney to defend him if he is apprehended. The money, though in his possession, is not rightfully his; the Government does not violate the Sixth Amendment if it seizes the robbery proceeds and refuses to permit the defendant to use them to pay for his defense. ”

“ It is guarded from invasion by the Sixth Amendment, adopted to raise an effective barrier against arbitrary or unjust deprivation of liberty by the Federal Government. 297 U.S. 233, 243-244. It is guarded from invasion by the Sixth Amendment, adopted to raise an effective barrier against arbitrary or unjust deprivation of liberty by the Federal Government. ”

“ Utah, 170 U.S. 343, 349, 18 S.Ct. 620, 42 L.Ed. 1061 (1898) , that the jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment consists 'of twelve persons, neither more nor less.' As I see it, the Court has not made out a convincing case that the Sixth Amendment should be read differently than it was in Thompson even if the matter were now before us de novo-much less that an unbroken line of precedent going back over 70 years should be overruled. ”

“ The foregoing discussion has shown, I think, how mistaken is the Court in implying that the Constitution has struck the balance in favor of the approach the Court takes. Ante, p. 479. Rather, precedent reveals that the Fourteenth Amendment, in practice, has been construed to strike a different balance, that the Fifth Amendment gives the Court little solid support in this context, and that the Sixth Amendment should have no bearing at all. Legal history has been stretched before to satisfy deep needs of society. ”

“ Our Constitution sets up a federal union, not a monolith.
This Court has heretofore held that various provisions of the Bill of Rights such as the freedom of speech and religion guarantees of the First Amendment, the prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures in the Fourth Amendment, the privilege against self-incrimination of the Fifth Amendment, and the right to counsel and to confrontation under the Sixth Amendment "are all to be enforced against the States under the Fourteenth Amendment according to the same standards that protect those personal rights against federal encroachment." ”

“ Whatever the full extent of the Sixth Amendment's protection of one's right to retain counsel of his choosing, that protection does not go beyond "the individual's right to spend his own money to obtain the advice and assistance of . ”

“ The Court has never explained the Confrontation Clause implications of a State's decision to adopt an exception not recognized at common law or one not recognized by a majority of the States. Our current jurisprudence suggests that, in order to satisfy the Sixth Amendment, the State would have to establish in each individual case that hearsay admitted pursuant to the newly created exception bears "particularized guarantees of trustworthiness," and would have to continue doing so until the exception became "firmly rooted" in the common law, if that is even possible under the Court's standard. ”

“ The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or property without due process of law"; while Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." ”

“ Offering counsel to a mother accused of neglect, and then hamstringing that counsel in such a way that the mother is likely to receive inadequate representation impairs the litigant's Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel. Creating a system of appointed counsel that is so ineffective that the entire court system becomes plagued with long and unavoidable delays, so that urgent claims of violations of constitutional rights go unaddressed for months, impairs subclass A members' due process as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. ”

“ For, while it may be true that acts which are mere invasions of private rights, which acts have no sanction in the statutes of a state, or which are not committed by any one exercising its authority, are not within the scope of that amendment, it is quite a different matter when congress undertakes to protect the citizen in the exercise of rights conferred by the constitution of the United States, essential to the healthy organization of the government itself. ”

“ Suppose that Congress, when proposing the Eleventh Amendment, had appended to it a proviso that nothing therein contained should prevent a State from being sued by its own citizens in cases arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States: can we imagine that it would have been adopted by the States? ”

“ It is now assailed; but if ideas can be expressed in words, and language has any meaning, this right-one of the most valuable in a free country-is preserved to every one accused of crime who is not attached to the army, or navy, or militia in actual service. The sixth amendment affirms that 'in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury,' language broad enough to embrace all persons and cases ”

“ That is precisely what the Sixth Amendment was designed to prevent. It commands impartiality in the jury-box. Impartiality cannot survive in the shadow of threats to a juror's reputation and livelihood. ”

“ Hence, whatever may be true of indictment and jury trials, I see no compelling reason whatever for not applying the other limitations of the Sixth Amendment. None of them is inconsistent with the due and proper performance of the court's function in criminal contempt. ”

“ Massachusetts, 557 U. S. 305, 313 (2009) . That conclusion follows from the text of the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right of the accused to “confron [t] ” “witnesses against him” (emphasis added) , not just those witnesses who “ ‘facially incriminat [e] ’ ” him, contra, ante, at 9–10. ”

“ If the accused, however, is not represented by counsel and has not competently and intelligently waived his constitutional right, the Sixth Amendment stands as a jurisdictional bar to a valid conviction and sentence depriving him of his life or his liberty. A court's jurisdiction at the hearing of trial may be lost 'in the course of the proceedings' due to failure to complete the court-as the Sixth Amendment requires-by providing counsel for an accused who is unable to obtain counsel, who has not intelligently waived this constitutional guaranty, and whose life or liberty is at stake. ”

“ Significantly, the Court also fails to explain adequately why the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and the jury trial guarantee of the Sixth Amendment require application of its rule. Upon closer examination, it is possible that the Court's "increase in the maximum penalty" rule rests on a meaningless formalism that accords, at best, marginal protection for the constitutional rights that it seeks to effectuate. ”

“ I agree with the Court, in large part because of the reasons it gives, that failure to notify Wade's counsel that Wade was to be put in a lineup by government officers and to be forced to talk and wear tape on his face denied Wade the right to counsel in violation of the Sixth Amendment. ”

“ We have concluded above that the Sixth Amendment is not offended by the forfeiture provisions at issue here. Even if, however, the Fifth Amendment provides some added protection not encompassed in the Sixth Amendment's more specific provisions, we find petitioner's claim based on the Fifth Amendment unavailing.
Forfeiture provisions are powerful weapons in the war on crime; like any such weapons, their impact can be devastating when used unjustly. ”

“ To the contrary, our cases hold that the Sixth Amendment entitles every defendant to object to a venire that is not designed to represent a fair cross section of the community, whether or not the systematically excluded groups are groups to which he himself belongs." 493 U.S., at 477, 110 S.Ct., at 805 (emphasis added) .
Thus, today's holding cannot be considered in accordance with our prior law. It is a clear departure. ”

“ As the Court's opinion suggests, the Confrontation Clause comes to us on faded parchment. History seems to give us very little insight into the intended scope of the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause. Commentators have been prone to slide too easily from confrontation to cross-examination.
Against this amorphous backdrop I reach two conclusions. First, the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment reaches no farther than to require the prosecution to produce and available witness whose declarations it seeks to use in a criminal trial. ”

“ We think that his omission to mention the case of crown servants cannot be regarded as a sufficient basis for holding, in the absence of other evidence, that the common-law rule was different in the colonies from that in England, much less that the Congress which proposed the Sixth Amendment, or the state Legislatures which ratified it, undertook to establish an absolute disqualification of all governmental employees beyond the control of the congressional power. ”

“ United States, 351 U.S. 513, 518-521, 76 S.Ct. 912, 916-917, 100 L.Ed. 1377. Every statutory exception is addressed either in terms or by necessary operation solely to civil actions. Moreover, the delays and disruptions attendant upon intermediate appeal are especially inimical to the effective and fair administration of the criminal law. The Sixth Amendment guarantees a speedy trial. Rule 2 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure counsels construction of the Rules 'to secure simplicity in procedure, fairness in administration and the elimination of unjustifiable expense and delay' ”

“ Preliminarily we observe that, unless there be some real conflict between the Sixteenth Amendment and the prohibition, in article 3, section 1, making the compensation of the judges undiminishable, effect must be given to the latter as well as to the former; and also that a purpose to depart from or imperil a constitutional principle so widely esteemed and so vital to our system of government as the independence of the judiciary is not lightly to be assumed. ”

“ To invoke the Sixth Amendment interest is, as a matter of fact, not to invoke the Miranda-Edwards interest. One might be quite willing to speak to the police without counsel present concerning many matters, but not the matter under prosecution. ”

“ No. R. 20, 2009
Commencement of the Constitution Sixteenth Amendment Act of 2009
Under section 2 of the Constitution Sixteenth Amendment Act of 2009, I hereby fix 3 April 2009 as the date on which the said Act shall come into operation. ”

“ More careful investigation may prove the law to be unsound in principle. Experience may show it to be imperfect in detail and impracticable in execution. And then both reason and right combine not merely to justify but to require its repeal.
The Constitution, supreme, as it is, over all the departments of the Government—legislative, executive, and judicial—is open to amendment by its very terms; and Congress or the States may, in their discretion, propose amendment to it, solemn compact though it in truth is between the sovereign States of the Union. ”

“ The Constitution, with few amendments, exists as it left the hands of its authors. The additions which have been made to it proclaim larger freedom and more extended citizenship. Popular government has demonstrated in its one hundred and twenty-four years of trial here its stability and security, and its efficiency as the best instrument of national development and the best safeguard to human rights.
When the Sixth Congress assembled in November, 1800, the population of the United States was 5,308,483.It is now 76,304,799. ”

“ Yet, this concept of 'national defense' cannot be deemed an end in itself, justifying any exercise of legislative power designed to promote such a goal. Implicit in the term 'national defense' is the notion of defending those values and ideals which set this Nation apart. For almost two centuries, our country has taken singular pride in the democratic ideals enshrined in its Constitution, and the most cherished of those ideals have found expression in the First Amendment. ”

“ I entirely agree with you that, while agitation in the States is necessary as a means of education, a sixteenth amendment to the national constitution is the quickest, surest and least laborious way to secure the success of this great work for human liberty. Any legislature of Indiana in the last six years would have ratified such an amendment. ”