Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 781

524US2

Unit: $U98

[09-06-00 19:40:38] PAGES PGT: OPIN

736

MONGE v. CALIFORNIA

Stevens, J., dissenting

opinion for the Court in Burks v. United States, Chief Justice
Burger emphasized this critical difference, i. e., “between re-
versals due to trial error and those resulting from eviden-
tiary insufﬁciency.”
Id., at 15. He speciﬁcally noted “that
the failure to make this distinction has contributed substan-
tially to the present state of conceptual confusion existing in
this area of the law,” ibid., and concluded that in order to
hold, as we did, “that the Double Jeopardy Clause precludes
a second trial once the reviewing court has found the evi-
dence legally insufﬁcient,” it was necessary to overrule sev-
eral prior cases, id., at 18. The Court’s opinion today re-
ﬂects the same failure to recognize the critical importance of
this distinction.

I agree that California’s decision to “implement procedural
safeguards to protect defendants who may face dramatic in-
creases in their sentences as a result of recidivism enhance-
ments,” ante, at 734, should not create a constitutional ob-
ligation that would not otherwise exist. But the fact
that so many States have done so—not just recently, but for
many years 5—is powerful evidence that they were simply
responding to the traditional understanding of fundamental
fairness that produced decisions such as In re Winship, 397
U. S. 358 (1970),6 and Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684

Court of Appeals may increase the sentence only if the trial court has
abused its discretion or employed unlawful procedures or made clearly
erroneous ﬁndings. The appellate court thus is empowered to correct
only a legal error” (emphasis added)); Bozza v. United States, 330 U. S.
160, 166–167 (1947) (error of law that infects a sentence may be corrected
on appeal).

5 See, e. g., cases cited in Annot., 58 A. L. R. 59–62 (1929); cases cited in
Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224, 256–257 (1998) (Scalia,
J., dissenting); see also ante, at 734 (“Many States have chosen to implement
procedural safeguards to protect defendants who may face dramatic in-
creases in their sentences as a result of recidivism enhancements”).

6 In Winship, despite the fact that the Court had never held “that proof
beyond a reasonable doubt is either expressly or impliedly commanded by
any provision of the Constitution,” 397 U. S., at 377 (Black, J., dissenting),
the traditional importance of that standard that dated “at least from our