Amendment 6 — Petty Offense Doctrine And Maximum Sentences Over Six Months

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Sixth Amendment :

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 wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Under its earlier, multi-factor approach to defining petty offenses, the Supreme Court had given close and arguably preeminent consideration to the maximum statutory penalty.[1](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn1amd6 " See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 159–60 (1968) ( “[T]he penalty authorized for a particular crime is of major relevance in determining whether it is serious or not and may in itself, if severe enough, subject the trial to the mandates of the Sixth Amendment.” ); District of Columbia v. Clawans, 300 U.S. 617, 624–25 (1937) (construing the question before it as “whether the penalty, which may be imposed for the present offense, of ninety days in a common jail, is sufficient to bring it within the class of major offenses, for the trial of which a jury may be demanded” ). ") In Baldwin v. New York, however, the Court fashioned from this criterion a bright line rule, stating: “we have concluded that no offense can be deemed ‘petty’ for purposes of the right to trial by jury where imprisonment for more than six months is authorized.” [2](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn2amd6 " 399 U.S. 66, 69 (1970) (plurality opinion). A plurality of only three Justices supported the bright-line rule, but because two additional Justices concurred in the judgment on a much broader ground (that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury trial for all crimes, petty or not), the plurality opinion set the petty offense doctrine. See Blanton v. City of North Las Vegas, 489 U.S. 538, 542 (1989) ( “[O]ur decision in Baldwin established that a defendant is entitled to a jury trial whenever the offense for which he is charged carries a maximum authorized prison term of greater than six months.” ). ") Robert Baldwin was charged in New York City with a pick-pocketing offense called “jostling,” punishable by a maximum of one year in prison.[3](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn3amd6 " Baldwin, 399 U.S. at 67. ") Under a New York City statute, he was not eligible for a jury trial and, over his Sixth Amendment objection, was tried and convicted before a judge instead.[4](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn4amd6 " Id. at 67–68. ") The Supreme Court, in pronouncing its bright line rule and holding that the denial of Baldwin’s request for a jury trial violated his Sixth Amendment right, relied primarily upon legislative consensus.[5](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn5amd6 " Id. at 70–71. ") Apart from New York City, the Court observed, no jurisdiction within the United States denied criminal defendants the right to jury trial for crimes with a maximum penalty exceeding six months’ imprisonment.[6](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn6amd6 " Id. at 71–72 ( “In the entire Nation, New York City alone denies an accused the right to interpose between himself and a possible prison term of over six months, the commonsense judgment of a jury of his peers.” ). ") The Court reasoned that this “near-uniform” legislative judgment about when the jury trial right should apply constituted “the only objective criterion by which a line could ever be drawn—on the basis of the possible penalty alone—between offenses that are and that are not regarded as ‘serious’ for purposes of trial by jury.” [7](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn7amd6 " Id. at 72–73. ") In the messy business of line-drawing, in other words, legislative consensus provided the best and only mark.[8](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn8amd6 " Id. ") The Court also concluded that the six-month rule struck the appropriate balance between the accused’s interest in “interpos[ing] between himself and a possible prison term . . . the commonsense judgment of a jury of his peers,” [9](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn9amd6 " Id. at 72. ") on the one hand, and the government’s interest in efficient and inexpensive adjudications, on the other hand.[10](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn10amd6 " Id. at 73–74 ( “Where the accused cannot possibly face more than six months’ imprisonment, we have held that the[ ] disadvantages [of criminal conviction without jury trial], onerous though they may be, may be outweighed by the benefits that result from speedy and inexpensive nonjury adjudications.” ). ")

Although Baldwin established that the right to jury trial applies whenever the maximum sentence for an offense exceeds six months, the case did not address the counter-proposition: whether the right necessarily does not apply when the maximum sentence for the charged offense does not exceed six months’ imprisonment.[11](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn11amd6 " Id. at 69 n.6 ( “In this case, we decide only that a potential sentence in excess of six months’ imprisonment is sufficiently severe by itself to take the offense out of the category of ‘petty.’” ). ")

The Court took up this question in Blanton v. City of North Las Vegas, where it established a “presumption” —but not a rule—that an offense with a maximum sentence of six months or less is petty for Sixth Amendment purposes and thus outside the reach of the jury trial right.[12](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn12amd6 " 489 U.S. 538, 543 (1989) ( “Although we did not hold in Baldwin that an offense carrying a maximum prison term of six months or less automatically qualifies as a ‘petty’ offense, and decline to do so today, we do find it appropriate to presume for purposes of the Sixth Amendment that society views such an offense as ‘petty.’” ). ") A defendant might rebut this presumption in a “rare situation” by demonstrating “that any additional statutory penalties, viewed in conjunction with the maximum authorized period of incarceration, are so severe that they clearly reflect a legislative determination that the offense in question is a ‘serious’ one.” [13](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn13amd6 " Id. ") In Blanton, the defendants faced charges for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), punishable under Nevada law by a term of imprisonment ranging from two days to six months, a fine ranging from $200 to $1,000, a ninety-day driver’s license suspension, and a mandatory course on alcohol abuse.[14](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn14amd6 " Id. at 539–40. ") As an alternative to the prison term, the statute authorized the trial court to order offenders to perform forty-eight hours of community service in garb identifying them as DUI offenders.[15](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn15amd6 " Id. at 539. ") The Court held that these statutory penalties, as a package, were not sufficiently severe to rebut the petty offense presumption arising from the absence of a potential prison term exceeding six months.[16](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn16amd6 " Id. at 544–45. ") In particular, the Court concluded that the $1,000 maximum fine fell well within the range of fines typically associated with petty offenses, and that the alternate punishment of two days of community service in DUI-offender clothing did not impose a burden or level of embarrassment commensurate with a prison sentence exceeding six months.[17](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn17amd6 " Id. at 544. ")

In the wake of Blanton, it remained unclear what kind of alternate penalties might suffice to render an offense punishable by a maximum prison sentence of six months or less (and, accordingly, subject to the presumption of pettiness) “serious” so as to trigger a right to a trial by jury under the Sixth Amendment .[18](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn18amd6 " See id. at 543 (calling the standard for rebutting the petty offense presumption “somewhat imprecise” but indicating that it “should ensure the availability of a jury trial in the rare situation where a legislature” makes a serious offense punishable by “onerous penalties” other than a prison term exceeding six months). ") The Court reiterated after Blanton, in a case holding the jury trial right inapplicable to a federal DUI offense, that alternate, non-incarceration penalties would trigger the right only in “rare case[s].” [19](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn19amd6 " United States v. Nachtigal, 507 U.S. 1, 5 (1993). ") On the other side of the ledger, a more recent case acknowledged, without having to decide the issue, that a federal environmental statute providing for a fine of $50,000 for each day of an ongoing violation—and therefore capable of triggering aggregate fines into the tens of millions of dollars—imposed a punishment sufficiently serious to fall within the jury trial right.[20](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-6/petty-offense-doctrine-and-maximum-sentences-over-six-months#fn20amd6 " Southern Union Co. v. United States, 567 U.S. 343, 352 (2012) ( “The [statute] subjects Southern Union to a maximum fine of $50,000 for each day of violation. The Government does not deny that, in light of the seriousness of that punishment, the company was properly accorded a jury trial.” ) (citation omitted). The corporate defendant faced a maximum potential fine of $38.1 million for a 762-day violation and was sentenced to pay a total of $18 million, id. at 347, but the Supreme Court held the sente