Opposition Brief — Seldrick Carpenter, Petitioner v. United States

No. 24-5594

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_______________

SELDRICK CARPENTER, PETITIONER

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

_______________

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

_______________

BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES IN OPPOSITION

_______________

ELIZABETH B. PRELOGAR

Solicitor General

Counsel of Record

NICOLE M. ARGENTIERI

Principal Deputy Assistant

Attorney General

ANN O’CONNELL ADAMS

Attorney

Department of Justice

Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

SupremeCtBriefs@usdoj.gov

(202) 514-2217

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether the district court was required to convene a jury

trial

as

a

prerequisite

for

the

revocation

of

supervised release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3583(e)(3).

(I)

petitioner’s

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_______________

No. 24-5594

SELDRICK CARPENTER, PETITIONER

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

_______________

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

_______________

BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES IN OPPOSITION

_______________

OPINIONS BELOW

The opinion of the court of appeals (Pet. App. 1a-14a) is

reported at 104 F.4th 655.

The order of the district court

(D. Ct. Doc. 52 (Nov. 28, 2023)) is unreported.

JURISDICTION

The judgment of the court of appeals was entered on June 17,

2024.

The petition for a writ of certiorari was filed on September

16, 2024.

The jurisdiction of this Court is invoked under 28

U.S.C. 1254(1).

2

STATEMENT

Following a guilty plea in the United States District Court

for the Central District of Illinois, petitioner was convicted of

distributing fentanyl, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1) and

(b)(1)(C).

Judgment 1.

In September 2019, the district court

sentenced him to 37 months of imprisonment, to be followed by six

years of supervised release.

Judgment 2-3.

In November 2023, the

court revoked petitioner’s supervised release and imposed a 30month term of imprisonment.

appeals affirmed.

1.

Revocation Judgment 3.

The court of

Pet. App. 1a-14a.

In 2017 and 2018, petitioner trafficked fentanyl and

heroin in Peoria, Illinois.

Presentence Investigation Report

(PSR)

occasions,

he

PSR

¶¶

When

law-enforcement

petitioner

and

him

photos

¶¶

6-20.

confidential

officers

On

several

informant.

arrested

8-14.

showed

transactions, he told them, “[Y]ou got me.”

sold

drugs

to

of

a

the

PSR ¶ 19.

A federal grand jury in the Central District of Illinois

returned an indictment charging petitioner with two counts of

distributing fentanyl and two counts of distributing heroin and

fentanyl, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C).

Indictment

1-3.

Petitioner

pleaded

guilty

to

one

count

of

distributing fentanyl in exchange for the government dismissing

the other three counts.

Plea Agreement 2, 10.

Pursuant to Federal

Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C), the parties agreed that

3

the court should impose a sentence of 37 months of imprisonment.

Plea Agreement 2, 10.

The district court accepted the plea agreement and sentenced

petitioner to 37 months of imprisonment, to be followed by six

years of supervised release.

supervised

release

included

Judgment 2-3.

not

committing

The conditions of

another

allowing a probation officer to make home visits.

crime

and

Judgment 3.

Petitioner did not appeal.

2.

Petitioner began serving his term of supervised release

on September 8, 2020.

11/2/23 Revocation Tr. (Tr.) 73.

After

petitioner failed to cooperate during two separate home visits

with

a

probation

officer,

see

Tr.

77-81,

the

district

court

modified the conditions of petitioner’s supervision to require

that he successfully complete a cognitive-based therapy program,

D. Ct. Doc. 22, at 1 (Dec. 6, 2021).

After petitioner again

refused a home visit from a probation officer in April 2023, Tr.

76-77, the Probation Office filed a petition to revoke petitioner’s

supervised release, citing his violation of the condition that

required him to allow home visits.

2023).

D. Ct. Doc. 27, at 2 (Apr. 28,

The court released petitioner on bond and set a date for

a final revocation hearing.

18-cr-10009 Docket entry (May 15,

2023).

In the meantime, petitioner was expelled from the required

therapy program for excessive absences after completing less than

half the program.

Tr. 83-84.

The Probation Office filed a

4

supplemental

petition

petitioner’s

violation

to

revoke

of

the

supervised

condition

successfully complete the treatment.

release,

citing

requiring

him

to

D. Ct. Doc. 33, at 2 (June

8, 2023).

Petitioner also committed new criminal offenses while on

bond.

In June 2023, he set fire to a car parked in a driveway

across the street from his house, destroying that car and damaging

another one.

Tr. 8-21, 28, 84-91.

When petitioner learned that

a video of him setting the fire had been obtained from an adjacent

carwash, he threatened carwash employees that if they turned videos

of his home over to the police, he would kill them.

That threat was also captured on video.

Tr. 30-38.

Gov’t Ex. 2, Tr. 91.

The

Probation Office filed another supplemental petition to revoke

petitioner’s

supervised

release,

stating

that

he

violated

conditions of supervision by committing the offenses of criminal

damage to property, arson, and intimidation.

D. Ct. Doc. 37, at

2 (Aug. 1, 2023).

Petitioner surrendered his bond; while awaiting the final

revocation hearing he was involved in a physical altercation with

another inmate, where he suffered an injury to his face and the

other inmate lost part of his ear.

Office

filed

an

additional

Tr. 92-99.

supplemental

petition

supervised release, alleging an aggravated battery.

42, at 2 (Oct. 6, 2023).

The Probation

to

revoke

D. Ct. Doc.

5

3.

Before

the

supervised-release

petitioner filed a motion for a jury trial.

revocation

hearing,

He relied on the Fifth

and Sixth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution in his motion, and

on Article III in his reply brief.

D. Ct. Doc. 44, at 1-9 (Oct.

12, 2023); D. Ct. Doc. 47 (Oct. 31, 2023).

The district court

denied the motion at the outset of the hearing.

See Tr. 7.

(“[I]t’s clear that there’s no entitlement to a jury trial for

supervised release issues.”). At the end of the hearing, the court

determined that petitioner willfully refused to permit a home visit

and failed to complete the required therapy, as alleged in the

first two revocation petitions.

Tr. 120-122.

The court also

determined that petitioner committed arson and criminal damage to

property, as alleged in the third petition.

court

declined

to

hold

petitioner

Tr. 130-132.

responsible

for

But the

the

jail

altercation alleged in the fourth petition, due to uncertainty

about how it started.

After

making

Tr. 132.

those

determinations,

the

district

court

indicated that it wanted to make a further record on the Article

III argument that petitioner had raised in his reply brief.

133-135.

Tr.

The court later denied petitioner’s jury-trial motion in

a written order.

D. Ct. Doc. 52 (Nov. 28, 2023).

The court

rejected petitioner’s argument that Article III’s statement that

“[t]he trial of all crimes * * * shall be by jury” requires a jury

trial for revocation proceedings.

(citation omitted).

Id. at 4; see id. at 4-6

It explained that the supervised-release

6

system under 18 U.S.C. 3583, including revocation and potential

reimprisonment for a violation, is typically understood as part of

the penalty for the initial offense.

Id. at 5 (citing United

States v. Haymond, 588 U.S. 634, 658 (2019)).

The district court revoked petitioner’s supervised release

and

imposed

a

revocation

term

of

30

months

of

imprisonment.

Revocation Judgment 3.

4.

The court of appeals affirmed.

Pet. App. 1a-14a.

The

court rejected petitioner’s effort to “leverage” a recent lawreview article “purporting” to show practices in the Founding Era

to argue that his revocation of supervised release is a “criminal

prosecution” requiring a jury trial under the Sixth Amendment.

Id. at 3a.

The court observed that petitioner’s Sixth Amendment

argument “collides with thirty years of contrary precedent” in the

circuit.

Id. at 4a (citing cases).

petitioner’s

argument

that

the

And the court disagreed with

prior

circuit

precedent

was

undermined by United States v. Haymond, supra.

Haymond involved a challenge to 18 U.S.C. 3583(k), which

applies only to defendants required to register under the Sex

Offender Registration and Notification Act, 34 U.S. 20901 et seq.,

and requires the district court to impose a sentence of “not less

than 5 years” if the defendant commits an enumerated sex crime

while on supervised release.

opinion).

See 588 U.S. at 639 n.2 (plurality

Joining all other courts of appeals to consider the

scope of that divided opinion, the court below recognized that

7

Justice

Breyer’s

concurring

controlling precedent.

opinion

in

Haymond

provides

the

Pet. App. 9a (citing cases).

The court of appeals then emphasized that Justice Breyer’s

concurrence

relied

on

several

distinct

characteristics

of

revocation under Section 3583(k) -- including its mandatory nature

-- that made Section 3583(k) “less like ordinary revocation” of

supervised release and more like criminal punishment requiring a

jury trial under the Sixth Amendment.

Pet. App. 9a (quoting

Haymond, 588 U.S. at 636 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment)

(emphasis omitted)).

And the court observed that petitioner’s

revocation proceeding under Section 3583(e) was “precisely the

kind of ‘ordinary revocation’ that Justice Breyer took care to

explain falls outside the scope of the Sixth Amendment.”

Ibid.

The court of appeals also rejected petitioner’s argument that

he was alternatively entitled to a jury trial under Article III,

which provides that “[t]he Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of

Impeachment, shall be by Jury.”

U.S. Const. Art. III, § 2, Cl. 3.

It found “no footing in the history of either the Sixth Amendment

or Article III” for petitioner’s view that Article III’s jury

guarantee

is

“independent

from

contained in the Sixth Amendment.

and

broader

than”

Pet. App. 11a.

the

right

Instead, after

tracing the history of the two constitutional provisions, the court

determined that the jury trial guarantees in Sixth Amendment and

Article III are “identical in scope,” such that “a proceeding that

8

does not trigger the Sixth Amendment cannot independently trigger

Article III, § 2.”

Id. at 13a.

ARGUMENT

Petitioner contends (Pet. 17-32) that the district court was

required

to

revocation

convene

of

a

jury

petitioner’s

U.S.C. 3583(e)(3).

trial

as

supervised

a

prerequisite

release

for

pursuant

the

to

18

The court of appeals correctly rejected that

contention, and its decision does not conflict with any decision

of this Court or another court of appeals.

No further review is

warranted. *

1.

Petitioner claims that the Sixth Amendment entitles him

to a jury trial for the revocation of his supervised release.

17-28.

a.

Pet.

That contention does not warrant this Court’s review.

The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides

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 wherein the crime shall have been committed.”

By its terms, the Sixth Amendment jury-trial right does not apply

in every court proceeding, only in “criminal prosecutions.”

Another pending petition for a writ of certiorari raises

a similar Sixth Amendment challenge to the revocation of supervised

release under 18 U.S.C. 3583(e)(3). See Smith v. United States,

No. 24-5608 (filed Sept. 16, 2024). Other pending petitions raise

a Sixth Amendment challenge to the revocation of supervised release

under 18 U.S.C. 3583(g). See Sevier v. United States, No. 24-5679

(filed Sept. 27, 2024); Stradford v. United States, No. 24-5943

(filed Nov. 6, 2024); Reyes v. United States, No. 24-5944 (filed

Nov. 5, 2024).

*

9

Accordingly, in Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471 (1972),

this Court recognized that the Sixth Amendment does not extend to

a proceeding concerning “the revocation of parole,” because it “is

not part of a criminal prosecution.”

Id. at 480.

Likewise, in

Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778 (1973), the Court reached an

identical

conclusion

with

respect

to

probation

revocation,

explaining that probation revocation, “like parole revocation, is

not a stage of a criminal prosecution.”

Id. at 782.

In United States v. Haymond, 588 U.S. 634 (2019), this Court

considered the Sixth Amendment’s application to 18 U.S.C. 3583(k),

a

supervised-release

offenders.

provision

that

applies

to

certain

sex

Under Section 3583(k), if the sentencing court finds

by a preponderance of the evidence that such a defendant has

committed

certain

release,

the

specified

court

must

sex

offenses

revoke

supervised

reimprisonment for a minimum of five years.

Writing

for

a

while

four-Justice

on

release

supervised

and

order

18 U.S.C. 3583(k).

plurality,

Justice

Gorsuch

concluded that Section 3583(k) violates the Sixth Amendment “as

applied in

cases”

that

“expose

a

defendant

to

an

additional

mandatory minimum prison term well beyond that authorized by the

jury’s verdict.”

Haymond, 588 U.S. at 652 (emphasis omitted)

(plurality opinion).

The plurality acknowledged that “supervised

release punishments arise from and are ‘[t]reat[ed]

* * *

as

part of the penalty for the initial offense’”; that a jury need

“not

* * *

find every fact in a revocation hearing that may

10

affect

the

judge’s

punishments

exercise

authorized

by

of

the

discretion

jury’s

with

verdict.”

the

range

Id.

at

(emphasis added; citation omitted; brackets in original).

of

648

But the

plurality concluded that, under Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S.

99 (2013), which addressed the application of the Sixth Amendment

to statutory-minimum sentences, “a jury must find any facts that

trigger a new mandatory minimum prison term.”

Ibid.; see, e.g.,

Haymond, 588 U.S. at 654.

Justice Breyer concurred in the judgment, in an opinion that

is narrower than Justice Gorsuch’s plurality opinion and therefore

controlling under Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977).

See Pet. App. 9a.

judge

in

a

Justice Breyer reiterated that “the role of the

supervised-release

proceeding

is

consistent

traditional parole” and does not require a jury trial.

with

Haymond,

588 U.S. at 657-658 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment).

For

that reason, Justice Breyer “would not transplant” Sixth Amendment

cases like Alleyne “to the supervised-release context.”

Ibid.

Justice Breyer nevertheless found Section 3583(k) unconstitutional

because of three features that, in his view, made it “less like

ordinary revocation and more like punishment for a new offense, to

which the jury right would typically attach.”

Id. at 659.

“First,

§ 3583(k) applies only when a defendant commits a discrete set of

federal

criminal

offenses

(emphasis omitted).

specified

in

the

statute.”

Ibid.

“Second, § 3583(k) takes away the judge’s

discretion to decide whether violation of a condition of supervised

11

release should result in imprisonment and for how long.”

(emphasis

omitted).

“Third,

§

3583(k)

limits

the

Ibid.

judge’s

discretion in a particular manner: by imposing a mandatory minimum

term of imprisonment of ‘not less than 5 years’ upon a judge’s

finding that a defendant has ‘commit[ted] any’ listed ‘criminal

offense.’”

Ibid. (emphasis omitted).

Justice

Alito

authored

a

dissenting

opinion

for

four

Justices. See Haymond, 588 U.S. at 659-683. The dissent explained

that because a supervised-release revocation proceeding is not

part of a “‘criminal prosecution’ within the meaning of the Sixth

Amendment,” the jury-trial right does not apply.

Id. at 667.

And

Justice Alito and the three other dissenters would have upheld

Section 3583(k) for that reason.

b.

Id. at 669.

This case does not involve Section 3583(k), but instead

Section 3583(e), under which the court that sentenced a defendant

may “revoke a term of supervised release, and require the defendant

to serve in prison all or part of the term of supervised release

authorized by statute for the offense that resulted in such term

of supervised release,” if it “finds by a preponderance of the

evidence that the defendant violated a condition of supervised

release,” subject to certain limits based on the nature of the

violation.

18 U.S.C. 3583(e)(3).

The court of appeals in this

case correctly recognized that the Sixth Amendment did not require

the district court to conduct a jury trial as a prerequisite for

revoking supervised release pursuant to that provision.

12

The court of appeals recognized that a revocation proceeding

under

Section

3583(e)(3)

is

not

a

“criminal

prosecution”

triggering the application of the Sixth Amendment because it

“focuses on the modification of a sentence already imposed and

implicates the conditional (rather than absolute) liberty that the

defendant enjoys as a result of that sentence.”

(citation omitted).

Pet. App. 4a

And that understanding is consistent with

Justice Breyer’s controlling opinion in Haymond that the Sixth

Amendment does not apply to “ordinary revocation,” which sanctions

a defendant’s “failure to follow the court-imposed conditions that

followed his initial conviction,” rather than “the particular

conduct triggering the revocation as if that conduct were being

sentenced as new federal criminal conduct.”

588 U.S. at 658

(citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

Section 3583(e)(3) has none of the three features of Section

3583(k) that, in Justice Breyer’s view, called for an exception to

that general rule.

First, unlike Section 3583(k) which “applies

only when a defendant commits a discrete set of federal criminal

offenses specified in the statute,” Haymond, 588 U.S. at 659

(Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment), Section 3583(e)(3) can

apply to a variety of criminal and noncriminal supervised-release

violations.

Indeed, petitioner’s supervised release was revoked

not only due to criminal violations, but also due to his failure

to cooperate with home visits and to complete a therapy program.

Tr. 120-122.

Second, unlike Section 3583(k), Section 3583(e) does

13

not require the court to revoke supervised release or expose

petitioner to a mandatory minimum sentence.

Haymond, 588 U.S. at 659.

See Pet. App. 10a;

Third, unlike Section 3583(k), Section

3853(e)(3) does not mandate that the judge “impos[e] a mandatory

minimum term of imprisonment of ‘not less than five years,’” but

instead leaves the disposition of a revocation up to the judge.

Ibid.; see Pet. App. 10a.

Indeed, as the court below correctly recognized, petitioner’s

revocation proceeding under Section 3583(e) was “precisely the

kind of ‘ordinary revocation’ that Justice Breyer took care to

explain falls outside the scope of the Sixth Amendment.”

Pet.

App. 10a.

Nor would petitioner be entitled to relief under the

plurality

opinion

in

Haymond,

which

makes

clear

that

its

application of the Sixth Amendment to revocation hearings would

“not mean a jury must find every fact in a revocation hearing that

may affect the judge’s exercise of discretion within the range of

punishments authorized by the jury’s verdict.”

(emphasis added).

588 U.S. at 648

Instead, the scope of its conclusion extends

only to cases in which a “new” and “mandatory minimum prison term”

is called for.

Ibid.

The plurality moreover expressly explained that “even if

[its] opinion could be read to cast doubts on § 3583(e),” any such

issue

would

arise

(at

most)

“in

a

small

set

of

cases”

--

specifically, those in which the combination of the terms imposed

initially and upon revocation “exceeds the statutory maximum term

14

of imprisonment the jury has authorized for the original crime of

conviction.”

Haymond, 588 U.S. at 655.

This is not such a case.

The 30 months of reimprisonment ordered by the district court

brings petitioner’s total period of imprisonment to 67 months,

which does not exceed the 20-year statutory maximum for the crime

to which petitioner pleaded guilty.

See 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(C);

Judgment 2; Revocation Judgment 3.

Petitioner also would not

prevail under Justice Alito’s dissent in Haymond, which explained

that a defendant never has a right to a jury trial on revocation.

588 U.S. at 682-683.

Petitioner accordingly acknowledges that he is asking this

Court to “expand[]” Haymond to permit his claim, Pet. i -- an

expansion that would take it beyond the scope of any of the

separate opinions in that case.

As petitioner recognizes (Pet. 11

n.1, 32-33), no court of appeals has adopted his theory.

To the

contrary, the courts of appeals to have considered the question

after Haymond have uniformly rejected Sixth Amendment challenges

to Section 3583(e).

See, e.g., United States v. Peguero, 34 F.4th

143, 156-165 (2d Cir. 2022); United States v. Ka, 982 F.3d 219,

221-223 (4th Cir. 2020); United States v. Eagle Chasing, 965 F.3d

647, 650-651 (8th Cir. 2020), cert. denied, 141 S. Ct. 575 (2020);

United States v. Henderson, 998 F.3d 1071, 1076-1078 (9th Cir.

2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 810 (2022); United States v.

Salazar, 987 F.3d 1248, 1253-1261 (10th Cir. 2021), cert. denied,

15

142 S. Ct. 321 (2021); United States v. Moore, 22 F.4th 1258, 12651269 (11th Cir. 2022).

c.

year,

Relying on a single law review article from earlier this

petitioner

asserts

that

after

Haymond,

new

scholarly

research shows that jury trials were the norm for “[f]orfeitures

of recognizance,” which he contends are a historical analogue for

supervised-release revocation hearings.

Pet. 19-25 (citing Jacob

Schuman, Revocation

122

(2024)).

at

the

Founding,

Mich.

L.

Rev.

1381

In petitioner’s view, that article compels the Court to

revisit Haymond and extend a jury-trial right to all supervisedrelease revocations.

Ibid.

That argument lacks merit.

Petitioner first suggests (Pet. 19-20) that Justice Alito’s

dissent in Haymond already recognized that recognizances were a

close analogue for modern supervised release.

But the dissent in

Haymond in fact found no close historical analogues to supervised

release.

See

588

U.S.

at

677

(“Supervised

release

was

not

instituted until 1984, and parole was unknown until the 19th

century, so close historic analogues are lacking.”).

While the

dissent identified forfeitures of recognizance as one of “the

nearest practices that can be found,” it did not say that the

comparison was close enough to resolve the question presented,

even if there were evidence that juries decided recognizance

forfeitures.

Ibid.

Neither of the other opinions in Haymond even mentioned

recognizances, let alone suggested that they provided a close

16

historical analogue to supervised release.

sound for them to do so.

Nor would it have been

Although there may be some superficial

similarities between recognizances in the 18th century and modernday supervised release, those similarities are outpaced by several

critical distinctions.

Unlike supervised release, recognizances were not a feature

tied to criminal-law sanctions, but rather a more generalized power

“incident to, and inherent in, courts of record.”

76 C.J.S.

Recognizances § 3 (2024); see 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries

on the Laws of England 341 (1765) (“A recognizance is an obligation

of record, which a man enters into before some court of record or

magistrate duly authorized, with condition to do some particular

act; as to appear at the assizes, to keep the peace, to pay a debt,

or the like.”) (emphasis omitted); see also, e.g., Paul Lermack,

The Law of Recognizances in Colonial Pennsylvania, 50 Temp. L.Q.

475, 475 (1977).

As such, “[i]t appears that most jurisdictions

followed the same procedures for forfeited recognizances as they

used for civil debt.”

Kellen R. Funk & Sandra G. Mayson, Bail at

the Founding, 137 Harv. L. Rev. 1816, 1831 (2024).

The

enforcement

criminal sentencing.

mechanisms

therefore

were

not

tied

to

For example, the enforcing party sought to

enforce a forfeiture using a civil “writ of scire facias,” which

is “an all-purpose judicial order to the recipient to appear before

the court and show cause why a penalty should not issue against

them.”

Funk & Mayson, 137 Harv. L. Rev. at 1831; see 76 C.J.S.

17

Recognizances § 31 (2024).

The inference that petitioner would

draw -- that the Framers necessarily incorporated such generalized

procedures into the Sixth Amendment through the reference to

“criminal prosecutions,”

U.S. Const. Amend. VI -- is accordingly

unsupported.

Moreover,

petitioner’s

observation

(Pet.

11)

that

other

courts of appeals that have rejected a Sixth Amendment challenge

to Section 3583(e)(3) post-Haymond did not have the benefit of the

law-review article is a reason for the Court to deny certiorari,

not to grant it.

Even assuming the article could be understood to

alter the constitutional calculus, review by this Court would be

premature, unless and until the lower courts can consider new

materials

and

analyze

whether

recognizances

provide

a

close

analogy to supervised-release revocation, using en banc review if

necessary.

2.

Petitioner also contends that Article III “creates an

additional and distinct jury right for federal supervisees facing

revocation.”

Pet. 28-32.

That contention likewise does not merit

this Court’s review.

Article III, Section 2, Clause 3 provides that “[t]he Trial

of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury.”

Petitioner asserts that Article III “broadly preserves the right

to

a

jury

whenever

the

government

brings

claims

against

a

defendant,” and the Sixth Amendment simply provides “additional

rules about jury features and criminal procedure” that apply only

18

to criminal prosecutions.

with this

Court’s

distinction.

Pet. 31.

precedents,

That argument is inconsistent

which

have

never

drawn

such

a

On the contrary, because the Sixth Amendment “and

the original Constitution were substantially contemporaneous,” the

Court has long instructed that the two provisions “should be

construed in pari materia.”

Patton v. United States, 281 U.S.

276, 298 (1930), abrogated on other grounds by Williams v. Florida,

399 U.S. 78 (1970).

“In other words, the two provisions mean substantially the

same thing.”

Patton, 281 U.S. at 298; see United States v. Garner,

874 F.2d 1510, 1511 n.2 (11th Cir. 1989) (per curiam) (observing

that this Court has “not distinguished between the guarantee of a

right to a jury trial in Article III and the Sixth Amendment”).

Nor

would

it

make

sense

to

create

an

amorphous

interstitial

category of cases subject to Article III’s jury-trial requirement,

but

not

the

additional

requirements

of

the

Sixth

Amendment.

Petitioner identifies no court that has accepted his Article III

argument, and

this Court does not usually grant certiorari to

give “guidance” on what petitioner admits is “an underdeveloped

area of jurisprudence” (Pet. 32) in the absence of any disagreement

in the courts of appeals.

to do so here.

See Sup. Ct. R. 10.

There is no reason

19

CONCLUSION

The petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied.

Respectfully submitted.

ELIZABETH B. PRELOGAR

Solicitor General

NICOLE M. ARGENTIERI

Principal Deputy Assistant

Attorney General

ANN O’CONNELL ADAMS

Attorney

DECEMBER 2024