Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 782

524US2

Unit: $U98

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 721 (1998)

737

Scalia, J., dissenting

(1975).7
It is this same traditional understanding of funda-
mental fairness—dating back centuries to the common-law
plea of autrefois acquit and buttressed by a special interest
in ﬁnality—that undergirds the Double Jeopardy Clause.8

I respectfully dissent.

Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Souter and Jus-

tice Ginsburg join, dissenting.

I agree with the Court ’s determination that Bullington v.
Missouri, 451 U. S. 430 (1981), should not be extended, and
its conclusion that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not
apply to noncapital sentencing proceedings.
I do not, how-
ever, agree with the Court’s assumption that only a sentenc-
ing proceeding was at issue here.

Like many other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, the Dou-
ble Jeopardy Clause makes sense only against the backdrop
In
of traditional principles of Anglo-American criminal law.
that tradition, defendants are charged with “offence[s].” A
criminal “offence” is composed of “elements,” which are fac-
tual components that must be proved by the state beyond a
reasonable doubt and submitted (if the defendant so desires)
to a jury. Conviction of an “offence” renders the defendant
eligible for a range of potential punishments, from which a
sentencing authority ( judge or jury) then selects the most

early years as a Nation,” id., at 361, justiﬁed our conclusion “that the Due
Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof
beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime
with which he is charged,” id., at 364.

7 In Mullaney, we unanimously extended the protection of Winship to
determinations that go not to a defendant’s guilt or innocence, but simply
to the length of his sentence.
421 U. S., at 697–698; see also Almendarez-
Torres, 523 U. S., at 251–252 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

8 Justice Scalia accurately characterizes the potential consequences of
today’s decision as “sinister.” Post, at 739.
It is not, however, California
that has taken “the ﬁrst steps” down the road the Court follows today.
It was the Court’s decision in McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79
(1986).