Cite as: 518 U. S. 322 (1996)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
rules at the outset that no more than six months' imprisonment will be imposed for the combined petty offenses, however, the liberty the jury serves to protect will not be endangered, and there is no corresponding right to jury trial.
Although Codispoti and Taylor are binding precedents, my conclusion rests also on a more fundamental point, one the Court refuses to confront: The primary purpose of the jury in our legal system is to stand between the accused and the powers of the State. Among the most ominous of those is the power to imprison. Blackstone expressed this principle when he described the right to trial by jury as a "strong . . . barrier . . . between the liberties of the people and the prerogative of the crown." 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *349-*350. See also W. Forsyth, History of Trial by Jury 426 (1852) ("[I]t would be difficult to conceive a better security than this right affords against any exercise of arbitrary violence on the part of the crown or a government acting in the name of the crown. No matter how ardent may be its wish to destroy or crush an obnoxious opponent, there can be no real danger from its menaces or acts so long as the party attacked can take refuge in a jury fairly and indifferently chosen"). In more recent times we have said the right to jury trial "reflect[s] a profound judgment about the way in which law should be enforced and justice administered." Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S., at 155. Providing a defendant with the right to be tried by a jury gives "him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge." Id., at 156. These considerations all are present when a judge in a single case sends a defendant to prison for years, whether the sentence is the result of one serious offense or several petty offenses.
On the Court's view of the case, however, there is no limit to the length of the sentence a judge can impose on a defendant without entitling him to a jury, so long as the prosecutor
335
Page: Index Previous 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007