The Sixth Amendment

The Sixth Amendment guarantees that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district where the crime was committed, to be informed of the nature of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining favorable witnesses, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. All of these rights now apply in state as well as federal courts.

The right to counsel was transformed by Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963, which required states to provide lawyers to defendants who cannot afford them in felony cases, a rule later extended to any case that can lead to jail. Federal defendants are represented by federal public defenders or appointed private lawyers. In Ramos v. Louisiana in 2020, the Supreme Court held that jury verdicts in serious criminal cases must be unanimous in state courts as well as federal ones, and Crawford v. Washington in 2004 strengthened the right to cross-examine witnesses.

In practice, most criminal cases never reach a jury. More than nine in ten federal convictions come from guilty pleas, often negotiated in exchange for reduced charges or sentences, which critics say pressures defendants to waive their trial rights. The Speedy Trial Act of 1974 sets deadlines for federal cases, and chronic underfunding of public defense in many states remains a subject of litigation and reform proposals, while prosecutors argue that plea bargaining is essential to a system that could not try every case.