Justice Rufus Peckham (majority): “It appears to us that the questions whether a trial in criminal cases not capital shall be by a jury composed of eight instead of twelve jurors, and whether, in case of an infamous crime, a person shall only be liable to be tried after presentment or indictment of a grand jury, are eminently proper to be determined by the citizens of each State for themselves, and do not come within the clause of the amendment under consideration so long as all persons within the jurisdiction of the State are made liable to be proceeded against by the same kind of procedure and to have the same kind of trial, and the equal protection of the laws is secured to them.”

Justice John Marshall Harlan (dissenting): “It does not meet the case to say that a trial by eight jurors is as much a trial by jury as if there were twelve jurors; for if a citizen charged with crime can be subjected to trial by a less number of jurors than that prescribed by the Constitution, the number may be reduced to three. Indeed, under the interpretation now given to the amendment, it will, I think, be impossible to escape the conclusion that a state may abolish trial by jury altogether in a criminal case, however grave the offense charged, and authorize the trial of a case of felony before a single judge. I cannot assent to this interpretation, because it is opposed to the plain words of the Constitution, and defeats the manifest object of the Fourteenth Amendment.”