Juries must be unanimous in convicting defendants of serious crimes such as murder, the Supreme Court ruled Monday in a 6-3 decision that had liberals and conservatives joining on both sides of the vote.

The decision overturns a 1972 ruling in Apodaca v. Oregon and the second-degree murder conviction of Evangelisto Ramos, who was found guilty of killing a woman 10-2 by a jury in 2016 in Louisiana, The Associated Press reported.

In effect, the decision only affected Oregon, the only state to permit nonunanimous verdicts, since Louisiana changed its law in 2019. However, it could affect thousands of convictions of individuals previously convicted by nonunanimous verdicts, Bloomberg Law said.

One of the striking facts about the decision was that it was written by Donald Trump-appointed Neil Gorsuch and joined, some in part some in whole, by fellow Republican appointees Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, and Democratic appointed justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

Samuel Alito dissented and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, both appointed by Republicans, and Elena Kagan, who was appointed by Democrat Barack Obama but agreed with only part of Alito’s opinion.

Thomas agreed with the decision, but for a different reason than the other five.

Gorsuch’s opinion said the reason for striking down the nonunanimous verdicts was that they had their roots in race.

“In fact, no one before us contests any of this; courts in both Louisiana and Oregon have frankly acknowledged that race was a motivating factor in the adoption of their states’ respective nonunanimity rules,” Gorsuch wrote.

Alito based his opinion on “stare decisis,” the legal concept of letting previous rulings stand except in extreme cases, Reason reported.

“The doctrine of stare decisis gets rough treatment in today’s decision,” Alito wrote. The majority, he said, “casts aside an important and long-established decision with little regard for the enormous reliance the decision has engendered.”

Alito went on to write what some believe was a reference to a possible future decision on the abortion ruling in Roe vs. Wade.

“By striking down a precedent upon which there has been massive and entirely reasonable reliance in this case, the majority sets an important precedent about stare decisis,” he wrote. “I assume that those in the majority will apply the same standard in future cases.”

Legal scholars have argued about whether Roe is “settled law.”