Some architectural ideas are elaborate and grandiose feats of engineering. Some are marvels of craftsmanship and skill.

And some are checklists — quiet, methodical safeguards that make sure everything else holds.

The Sixth Amendment is that kind of index — a punch list of what is necessary for everything else to function.

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”

The Sixth Amendment continues the work of the Fourth and Fifth, building out the U.S. court system. Where the Fourth establishes the responsibilities of the government and the Fifth the rights of the accused, the Sixth checks off the boxes for how the courts work.

It starts by ensuring it all happens as soon as possible.

“The speedy trial requirement is to prevent a government from holding a charge over someone’s head for an extended period of time,” said Bruce Antkowiak, professor of law at Saint Vincent College.

That serves two purposes. It keeps accusations from dangling over a defendant’s head without resolution. For those in custody awaiting trial, it prevents punishment before guilt is established.

That quick trip to court also needs to happen openly. The amendment guarantees the trial be public.

“We don’t want the government to be operating in secret. We want the government to be operating very much out in the public view so we can scrutinize how that process is occurring,” Antkowiak said.

Is that just something a law professor comes up with? No.

“Court proceedings, except for certain limited situations, are open to the public. This is for the protection of the accused, to be certain to ascertain that there is a fair trial,” Walter Cronkite told the Florida Times-Union in a 1978 interview.

Those trials are not decided by the government. They are handed to the people. The Sixth Amendment is where the idea of juries is installed in the court system.

“The executive branch is alleging guilt,” Antkowiak said. “You could not logically allow the same entity who is bringing the charge to be judging over it. An impartial jury is a critical thing for the entire system.”

The founders agreed. For John Adams, trial by jury was the lungs of the new nation. Thomas Jefferson wrote to Thomas Paine that it was “the only anchor, ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”

The importance of the people and the community comes up again in the next clause, when jurisdiction is raised.

Antkowiak said that is part of tying the voice of the people to the voice of justice.

“The idea was, there is a public judgment being made here. And the the notion of having people from the vicinity, from the area in which it happens, is to reflect that this is in part a communal judgment made by the people,” he said. “They are the ones who are going to ultimately decide.”

Having checked off the construction of the courtroom, the rest of the amendment addresses responsibilities toward the accused.

First, the defendant has to be told exactly what the charges are. That may seem basic, but it builds on a time when someone could be locked up indefinitely without information.

“That is something that the framers of this amendment thought was absolutely inimical to a society that would consider itself free,” Antkowiak said.

The rights to confront an accuser and call witnesses also are built into the system in the Sixth.

“This invites the critical nature of cross-examination that your story just doesn’t stand by itself. You can challenge it … not only by probing those questions … but also that you have the right to call witnesses to refute it,” Antkowiak said.

Think about all of those legal dramas you’ve seen and how they would fall apart without those courtroom confrontations between lawyers and witnesses.

And speaking of lawyers, the amendment wraps up with the necessity of having defense counsel.

“Any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him,” wrote U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in the 1963 opinion Gideon v. Wainwright.

Antkowiak sees that as obvious.

“How can you possibly exercise any of the other rights unless you are able to properly articulate them in court?” he said.

Taken together, the list checks the boxes in a system meant to be fairer than anything that had existed before.

“Is it perfect? Of course not. Could it ever be perfect? Of course not,” said Antkowiak. “But if it runs in the way that the Sixth Amendment would want us to have it run, I have got to believe that we would have more justice than we could have in any other system that tried to cut corners.”

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