The Court ruled, 5-3,[1] that after a mailed notice was returned unclaimed, a state was required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to take additional reasonable steps to notify the owner before the sale could proceed.

Justice Clarence Thomas, in dissent, believed the Court was instead undermining Dusenbery, which he argued implicitly dictated a result contrary to the majority's decision.

[10] The United States Solicitor General was granted leave to participate as amicus curiae,[11] and argued in support of the Commissioner's position.

Justice Clarence Thomas filed a dissent, arguing that the State's attempts went beyond any requirements the Court's prior precedents had established.

The Court believed that "someone who actually wanted to alert Jones that he was in danger of losing his house would do more when the attempted notice letter was returned unclaimed, and there was more that reasonably could be done."

Based on Dusenbery as well as earlier cases, the State argued that once it provided notice reasonably calculated to apprise Jones of the impending tax sale by mailing him a certified letter, due process was satisfied.

The Court did not believe that someone who actually desired to inform the owner would do nothing further when a certified letter is returned unclaimed, and satirized the State's position by analogy.

[14] The Court proceeded to analyze whether there were additional reasonable steps that the State could have practicably taken to notify Jones of the tax sale.

[15] The Court believed that in either case, the current occupant of the home would be likely to read the notice and attempt to alert the owner, because a change in ownership would directly affect them.

Though the Commissioner argued that even those additional steps were burdensome, the Court countered that it had instead undertaken "the burden and expense of purchasing a newspaper advertisement, conducting an auction, and then negotiating a private sale of the property."

Though acknowledging that Jones should have been more diligent regarding his property, the Court rejected that any of those conditions could amount to a forfeiture of his due process right to receive adequate notice.

The Court clarified that it was not its responsibility to dictate what form of service that the government should adopt, or to attempt to redraft a State's notice statute.

The Court considered it sufficient for it to determine "that additional reasonable steps were available for Arkansas to employ before taking Jones' property."

Justice Thomas dissented, arguing that under Court precedent, the State's notice attempts clearly satisfied due process requirements.

"[18] According to Thomas, the Court's inquiry should have ended with the conclusion that the State's chosen method of notice by certified mail was reasonably calculated to inform Jones of proceedings affecting his property interest.

The State was accordingly free to assume that the address it had on record was correct and up-to-date, or that he had left a caretaker at the house who would inform him of the notice.

He argued that the Court had abandoned this by basing its decision on information that was unavailable when notice was sent, and that all of its suggested reasonable methods were "entirely the product of post hoc considerations."

Thomas wrote of the Court's proposed alternatives that, "aside from being constitutionally unnecessary, [they] are also burdensome, impractical, and no more likely to effect notice than the methods actually employed by the State."

Thomas instead believed that the Arkansas system requiring the property owner to maintain a current address with the state taxing authority was reasonable and sufficient.