Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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The Sixth Amendment (Amendment VI) to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied all but one of this amendment's protections to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants eight different rights, including the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury consisting of jurors from the state and district in which the crime was alleged to have been committed. Under the impartial jury requirement, jurors must remain objective, and the jury must consist of a representative cross-section of the community. The right to a jury applies only to offenses in which the penalty is imprisonment for longer than six months. In Barker v. Wingo, the Supreme Court articulated a balancing test to determine whether a defendant's right to a speedy trial had been violated. It has additionally...

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