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Amendment VI
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The Sixth Amendment is appropriately considered the centerpiece of the American criminal justice system. In addition to guaranteeing all criminal defendants a trial by jury, it provides an outline of the basic procedures to be followed in such trials. The trial shall be a speedy one, which is to say that accused criminals cannot be imprisoned for lengthy periods of time before receiving a trial. The trial must be public. The framers of the Sixth Amendment specifically rejected the English Star Chamber proceedings; that is, proceedings held in private, away from scrutiny by the public. The juries in criminal trials should in normal instances, be drawn from ordinary citizens who are resident in the state and region where the crime was committed (although in unusual cases, if the crime is of such a sensationl nature that t might prove impossible to impanel an impartial jury, the trial might be held in a jurisdiction other than the one in which the crime was committed).
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The Sixth Amendment also guarantees to the accused the right to be confronted with the nture of the charges brought against hih; the right to confront, either directly or through an attorney, the witnesses against him; and the right to present witnesses in his defense. Finally, criminal defendants are entitled to ''Assistance of Counsel''; that is, a competent attorney to assist them in their defense. These basic guarantees have been elaborated in countless court cases in the more than two hundred years since the amendment was ratified and, through the incorporation doctrine, have become the standard procedure for criminal trials inn states and other localities as well as in federal courts.
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