Page:Smith v. United States (2023).pdf/8

4 We have recognized one exception to this general rule: violations of the Speedy Trial Clause, which we have described as “generically different” from “any” other criminal right in the Constitution, Barker v. Wingo, 407 U. S. 514, 519 (1972), preclude retrial. In all other circumstances, we have found that retrial is the strongest appropriate remedy, and we have applied this rule to every other Clause of the Sixth Amendment except for the Vicinage Clause (which we now address along with the Venue Clause).

Against this backdrop, we are asked to consider whether violations of the Venue and Vicinage Clauses are exceptions to the retrial rule. Text and precedent provide no basis for that result.

We start with the Venue Clause, which concerns the place where a trial must be held. That Clause mandates that the “Trial of all Crimes … shall be held in the State where the … Crimes shall have been committed.” Art. III, §2, cl. 3. Nothing about the language that frames this requirement suggests that a new trial in the proper venue is