522
Opinion of the Court
The Government also claims stare decisis benefit from our decision in Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S. 759 (1988), which held that, in appellate review of a District Court (non-jury) denaturalization proceeding, the appellate court's newly asserted standard of materiality could be applied to the facts by the appellate court itself, rather than requiring remand to the District Court for that application. Id., at 772. But as we have observed, the characterization of a mixed question of law and fact for one purpose does not govern its characterization for all purposes. It is hard to imagine questions more diverse than, on the one hand, whether an appellate court must remand to a district court for a determination of materiality in a denaturalization proceeding (Kungys) and, on the other hand, whether the Constitution requires the finding of the element of materiality in a criminal prosecution to be made by the jury (the present case). It can be argued that Kungys itself did not heed this advice, since it relied upon both our prior decision in Sinclair, see 485 U. S., at 772, and a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit holding that materiality in a § 1001 prosecution is a question of " 'law' " for the court, ibid. (quoting United States v. Abadi, 706 F. 2d 178, 180, cert. denied, 464 U. S. 821 (1983)). But the result in Kungys could be thought to follow a fortiori from the quite different cases of Sinclair and Abadi, whereas nonentitlement under the Sixth Amendment to a jury determination cannot possibly be thought to follow a fortiori from Kungys. In any event, Kungys assuredly did not involve an adjudication to which the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial attaches, see Luria v. United States, 231 U. S. 9 (1913), and hence had no reason to explore the constitutional ramifications of Sinclair and Abadi, as we do today. Whatever support it gave to the validity of those decisions was obiter dicta, and may properly be disregarded.
* * *
The Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to have a jury determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, his guilt
Page: Index Previous 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007