Cite as: 515 U. S. 506 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
spirit of oppression and tyranny on the part of rulers," and "was from very early times insisted on by our ancestors in the parent country, as the great bulwark of their civil and political liberties." Id., at 540-541. See also Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 151-154 (1968) (tracing the history of trial by jury).
III
Thus far, the resolution of the question before us seems simple. The Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to demand that a jury find him guilty of all the elements of the crime with which he is charged; one of the elements in the present case is materiality; respondent therefore had a right to have the jury decide materiality. To escape the force of this logic, the Government offers essentially three arguments. Having conceded the minor premise—that materiality is an element of the offense—the Government argues first, that the major premise is flawed; second, that (essentially) a page of history is worth a volume of logic, and uniform practice simply excludes the element of materiality from the syllogism; and third, that stare decisis requires the judgment here to be reversed.
A
As to the first, the Government's position is that "materiality," whether as a matter of logic or history, is a "legal" question, and that although we have sometimes spoken of "requiring the jury to decide 'all the elements of a criminal offense,' e. g., Estelle v. McGuire, [502 U. S. 62, 69] (1991); see Victor v. Nebraska, [511 U. S. 1, 5] (1994); Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 210 (1977), the principle actually applies to only the factual components of the essential elements." Brief for United States 33 (emphasis added). The Government claims that this understanding of the jury's role
daca v. Oregon, 406 U. S. 404 (1972) (plurality opinion) (applying similar analysis to conclude that jury unanimity is not constitutionally required).
511
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