The U.S. Supreme Court case Ramos v. Louisiana, 2019 centered on the constitutionality of non-unanimous jury verdicts in criminal trials for serious offenses. Evangelisto Ramos was convicted of second-degree murder by a 10-2 jury vote in Louisiana and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. He appealed his conviction arguing that the state's allowance for non-unanimous juries violated his Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial and Fourteenth Amendment due process rights under the U.S Constitution. In April 2020, the Supreme Court ruled (6-3) in favor of Ramos, declaring that states must require unanimous juries for convictions in serious crimes as per Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to an impartially tried jury which applies equally at both federal and state levels through incorporation doctrine via Fourteenth amendment’s Due Process Clause. This ruling invalidated laws allowing split-verdicts only existing then in Oregon and Louisiana (which had already changed its law prospectively), thus ensuring unanimity requirement across all states henceforth.

In the Ramos v. Louisiana case, Justice Alito, joined by Justices Roberts and Kagan in dissenting opinion, argued that the court's decision to overturn precedent was not justified as it did not meet the criteria for overruling established in previous cases. They contended that non-unanimous jury verdicts were not inherently unconstitutional and pointed out that this practice had been upheld by Apodaca v Oregon (1972). The dissenters expressed concern about potential implications of this ruling on other precedents and warned against a too-easy willingness to overturn them. They also raised concerns about practical effects of the majority’s decision which could potentially lead to retrials for many serious offenders whose appeals have long since concluded.