Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/519/172/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 00:31:16+00:00

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Mter a fracas involving at least one gunshot, petitioner, Old Chief, was charged with, inter alia, violating 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(I), which prohibits possession of a firearm by anyone with a prior felony conviction. He offered to stipulate to § 922(g)(I)'s prior-conviction element, arguing that his offer rendered evidence of the name and nature of his prior offenseassault causing serious bodily injury-inadmissible because its "probative value [was] substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice ... ," Fed. Rule Evid. 403. The Government refused to join the stipulation, however, insisting on its right to present its own evidence of the prior conviction, and the District Court agreed. At trial, the Government introduced the judgment record for the prior conviction, and a jury convicted Old Chief. In affirming the conviction, the Court of Appeals found that the Government was entitled to introduce probative evidence to prove the prior offense regardless of the stipulation offer.
Held: A district court abuses its discretion under Rule 403 if it spurns a defendant's offer to concede a prior judgment and admits the full judgment record over the defendant's objection, when the name or nature of the prior offense raises the risk of a verdict tainted by improper considerations, and when the purpose of the evidence is solely to prove the element of prior conviction. Pp. 178-192.
(a) Contrary to Old Chief's position, the name of his prior offense as contained in the official record is relevant to the prior-conviction element. That record made his § 922(g)(I) status "more probable ... than it [would have been] without the evidence," Fed. Rule Evid. 401; and the availability of alternative proofs, such as his admission, did not affect its evidentiary relevance, see Advisory Committee's Notes on Fed. Rule Evid. 401, 28 U. S. C. App., p. 859. pp. 178-179.
anced against its prejudicial risk of misuse. A judge should balance these factors not only for the item in question but also for any actually available substitutes. If an alternative were found to have substantially the same or greater probative value but a lower danger of unfair prejudice, sound judicial discretion would discount the value of the item first offered and exclude it if its discounted probative value were substantially outweighed by unfairly prejudicial risk. Pp. 180-185.
(c) In dealing with the specific problem raised by § 922(g)(1) and its prior-conviction element, there can be no question that evidence of the name or nature of the prior offense generally carries a risk of unfair prejudice whenever the official record would be arresting enough to lure a juror into a sequence of bad character reasoning. Old Chief sensibly worried about the prejudicial effect of his prior offense. His proffered admission also presented the District Court with alternative, relevant, admissible, and seemingly conclusive evidence of the prior conviction. Thus, while the name of the prior offense may have been technically relevant, it addressed no detail in the definition of the prior-conviction element that would not have been covered by the stipulation or admission. Pp. 185-186.
(d) Old Chief's offer supplied evidentiary value at least equivalent to what the Government's own evidence carried. The accepted rule that the prosecution is entitled to prove its case free from any defendant's option to stipulate the evidence away has virtually no application when the point at issue is a defendant's legal status. Here, the most the jury needed to know was that the conviction admitted fell within the class of crimes that Congress thought should bar a convict from possessing a gun. More obviously, the proof of status went to an element entirely outside the natural sequence of what Old Chief was charged with thinking and doing to commit the current offense. Since there was no cognizable difference between the evidentiary significance of the admission and the official record's legitimately probative component, and since the functions of the competing evidence were distinguishable only by the risk inherent in the one and wholly absent from the other, the only reasonable conclusion was that the risk of unfair prejudice substantially outweighed the conviction record's discounted probative value. Thus, it was an abuse of discretion to admit the conviction record when the defendant's admission was available. Pp. 186-192.
56 F.3d 75, reversed and remanded.
SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS, KENNEDY, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and SCALIA and THOMAS, JJ., joined, post, p. 192.
Daniel Donovan argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Anthony R. Gallagher.
JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court. Subject to certain limitations, 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(1) prohibits possession of a firearm by anyone with a prior felony conviction, which the Government can prove by introducing a record of judgment or similar evidence identifying the previous offense. Fearing prejudice if the jury learns the nature of the earlier crime, defendants sometimes seek to avoid such an informative disclosure by offering to concede the fact of the prior conviction. The issue here is whether a district court abuses its discretion if it spurns such an offer and admits the full record of a prior judgment, when the name or nature of the prior offense raises the risk of a verdict tainted by improper considerations, and when the purpose of the evidence is solely to prove the element of prior conviction.1 We hold that it does.
*Tova Indritz and Barbara Bergman filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as amicus curiae.
1 The standard of review applicable to the evidentiary rulings of the district court is abuse of discretion. United States v. Abel, 469 U. S. 45, 54-55 (1984).
crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year" is defined to exclude "any Federal or State offenses pertaining to antitrust violations, unfair trade practices, restraints of trade, or other similar offenses relating to the regulation of business practices" and "any State offense classified by the laws of the State as a misdemeanor and punishable by a term of imprisonment of two years or less." § 921(a)(20).
meanor and punishable by a term of imprisonment of two years or less and certain crimes concerning the regulation of business practices.
2 Proposals for instructing the jury in this case proved to be perilous.
We will not discuss Old Chief's proposed instruction beyond saying that, even on his own legal theory, revision would have been required to dispel ambiguity. The jury could not have said whether the instruction that Old Chief had been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year meant that, as a matter of law, his conviction fell within the definition of "crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year," or was instead merely a statement of fact, in which case the jurors could not have determined whether the predicate offense was within one of the statute's categorical exceptions, a "state ... misdemeanor ... punishable by a term ... of two years or less" or a "business" crime. The District Court did not, however, deny Old Chief's motion because of the artless instruction he proposed, but because of the general rule, to be discussed below, that permits the Government to choose its own evidence.
The Assistant United States Attorney refused to join in a stipulation, insisting on his right to prove his case his own way, and the District Court agreed, ruling orally that, "If he doesn't want to stipulate, he doesn't have to." Id., at 15-16. At trial, over renewed objection, the Government introduced the order of judgment and commitment for Old Chief's prior conviction. This document disclosed that on December 18, 1988, he "did knowingly and unlawfully assault Rory Dean Fenner, said assault resulting in serious bodily injury," for which Old Chief was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Id., at 18-19. The jury found Old Chief guilty on all counts, and he appealed.
"Regardless of the defendant's offer to stipulate, the government is entitled to prove a prior felony offense through introduction of probative evidence. See United States v. Breitkreutz, 8 F.3d 688, 690 (9th Cir. 1993) (citing United States v. Gilman, 684 F.2d 616, 622 (9th Cir. 1982)). Under Ninth Circuit law, a stipulation is not proof, and, thus, it has no place in the FRE 403 balancing process. Breitkreutz, 8 F.3d 691-92.
"Thus, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing the prosecution to introduce evidence of Old Chief's prior conviction to prove that element of the unlawful possession charge." No. 9430277, 1995 WL 325745, *1 (CA9, May 31, 1995) (unpublished), App. 50-51, judgt. order reported at 56 F.3d 75 (1995).
some such instruction and withdrew the request only after the court had charged the jury.
F. 2d 14, 15 (CA6 1976); United States v. Smith, 520 F.2d 544, 548 (CA8 1975), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 925 (1976); and United States v. Breitkreutz, 8 F.3d 688, 690-692 (CA9 1993) (each recognizing a right on the part of the Government to refuse an offered stipulation and proceed with its own evidence of the prior offense), with United States v. Tavares, 21 F.3d 1, 3-5 (CAl1994) (en bane); United States v. Poore, 594 F.2d 39, 40-43 (CA4 1979); United States v. Wacker, 72 F.3d 1453, 1472-1473 (CAlO 1995); and United States v. Jones, 67 F. 3d 320, 322-325 (CADC 1995) (each holding that the defendant's offer to stipulate to or to admit to the prior conviction triggers an obligation of the district court to eliminate the name and nature of the underlying offense from the case by one means or another). We now reverse the judgment of the Ninth Circuit.
3 "All relevant evidence is admissible, except as otherwise provided by the Constitution of the United States, by Act of Congress, by these rules, or by other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court pursuant to statutory authority. Evidence which is not relevant is not admissible." Fed. Rule Evid.402.
was a step on one evidentiary route to the ultimate fact, since it served to place Old Chief within a particular subclass of offenders for whom firearms possession is outlawed by § 922(g)(1). A documentary record of the conviction for that named offense was thus relevant evidence in making Old Chief's § 922(g)(1) status more probable than it would have been without the evidence.
"The fact to which the evidence is directed need not be in dispute. While situations will arise which call for the exclusion of evidence offered to prove a point conceded by the opponent, the ruling should be made on the basis of such considerations as waste of time and undue prejudice (see Rule 403), rather than under any general requirement that evidence is admissible only if directed to matters in dispute." Advisory Committee's Notes on Fed. Rule Evid. 401, 28 U. S. C. App., p. 859.
The term "unfair prejudice," as to a criminal defendant, speaks to the capacity of some concededly relevant evidence to lure the factfinder into declaring guilt on a ground different from proof specific to the offense charged. See generally 1 J. Weinstein, M. Berger, & J. McLaughlin, Weinstein's Evidence, 403 (1996) (discussing the meaning of "unfair prejudice" under Rule 403). So, the Committee Notes to Rule 403 explain, "'Unfair prejudice' within its context means an undue tendency to suggest decision on an improper basis, commonly, though not necessarily, an emotional one." Advisory Committee's Notes on Fed. Rule Evid. 403, 28 U. S. C. App., p. 860.
the meaning of Rule 401, and others irrelevant and inadmissible under Rule 402.
5 Petitioner also suggests that we might find a prosecutor's refusal to accept an adequate stipulation and jury instruction in the narrow context presented by this case to be prosecutorial misconduct. The argument is that, since a prosecutor is charged with the pursuit of just convictions, not victory by fair means or foul, any ethical prosecutor must agree to stipulate in the situation here. But any ethical obligation will depend on the construction of Rule 403, and we have no reason to anticipate related ethicallapses once the meaning of the Rule is settled.
"Courts that follow the common-law tradition almost unanimously have come to disallow resort by the prosecution to any kind of evidence of a defendant's evil character to establish a probability of his guilt. Not that the law invests the defendant with a presumption of good character, Greer v. United States, 245 U. S. 559, but it simply closes the whole matter of character, disposition and reputation on the prosecution's case-in-chief. The state may not show defendant's prior trouble with the law, specific criminal acts, or ill name among his neighbors, even though such facts might logically be persuasive that he is by propensity a probable perpetrator of the crime. The inquiry is not rejected because character is irrelevant; on the contrary, it is said to weigh too much with the jury and to so overpersuade them as to prejudge one with a bad general record and deny him a fair opportunity to defend against a particular charge. The overriding policy of excluding such evidence, despite its admitted probative value, is the practical experience that its disallowance tends to prevent confusion of issues, unfair surprise and undue prejudice." Michelson v. United States, 335 U. S. 469, 475-476 (1948) (footnotes omitted).
character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith." Fed. Rule Evid. 404(b). There is, accordingly, no question that propensity would be an "improper basis" for conviction and that evidence of a prior conviction is subject to analysis under Rule 403 for relative probative value and for prejudicial risk of misuse as propensity evidence. Cf. 1 J. Strong, McCormick on Evidence 780 (4th ed. 1992) (hereinafter McCormick) (Rule 403 prejudice may occur, for example, when "evidence of convictions for prior, unrelated crimes may lead a juror to think that since the defendant already has a criminal record, an erroneous conviction would not be quite as serious as would otherwise be the case").
6 It is important that a reviewing court evaluate the trial court's decision from its perspective when it had to rule and not indulge in review by hindsight. See, for example, United States v. O'Shea, 724 F.2d 1514, 1517 (CAll 1984), where the appellate court approved the trial court's pretrial refusal to impose a stipulation on the Government and exclude the Government's corresponding evidence of past convictions because the trial court had found at that stage that the evidence would quite likely come in anyway on other grounds.
7While our discussion has been general because of the general wording of Rule 403, our holding is limited to cases involving proof of felon status. On appellate review of a Rule 403 decision, a defendant must establish abuse of discretion, a standard that is not satisfied by a mere showing of some alternative means of proof that the prosecution in its broad discretion chose not to rely upon.
of evidence to recognize the danger of unfair prejudice only to confer such a degree of autonomy on the party subject to temptation, and the Rules of Evidence are not so odd.
twin tendencies, but by placing the result of that assessment alongside similar assessments of evidentiary alternatives. See 1 McCormick 782, and n. 41 (suggesting that Rule 403's "probative value" signifies the "marginal probative value" of the evidence relative to the other evidence in the case); 22 C. Wright & K. Graham, Federal Practice and Procedure § 5250, pp. 546-547 (1978) ("The probative worth of any particular bit of evidence is obviously affected by the scarcity or abundance of other evidence on the same point").
8 It is true that a prior offense may be so far removed in time or nature from the current gun charge and any others brought with it that its potential to prejudice the defendant unfairly will be minimal. Some prior offenses, in fact, may even have some potential to prejudice the Government's case unfairly. Thus an extremely old conviction for a relatively minor felony that nevertheless qualifies under the statute might strike many jurors as a foolish basis for convicting an otherwise upstanding member of the community of otherwise legal gun possession. Since the Government could not, of course, compel the defendant to admit formally the existence of the prior conviction, the Government would have to bear the risk of jury nullification, a fact that might properly drive the Government's charging decision.
The District Court was also presented with alternative, relevant, admissible evidence of the prior conviction by Old Chief's offer to stipulate, evidence necessarily subject to the District Court's consideration on the motion to exclude the record offered by the Government. Although Old Chief's formal offer to stipulate was, strictly, to enter a formal agreement with the Government to be given to the jury, even without the Government's acceptance his proposal amounted to an offer to admit that the prior-conviction element was satisfied, and a defendant's admission is, of course, good evidence. See Fed. Rule Evid. 801(d)(2)(A).
Old Chief's proffered admission would, in fact, have been not merely relevant but seemingly conclusive evidence of the element. The statutory language in which the priorconviction requirement is couched shows no congressional concern with the specific name or nature of the prior offense beyond what is necessary to place it within the broad category of qualifying felonies, and Old Chief clearly meant to admit that his felony did qualify, by stipulating "that the Government has proven one of the essential elements of the offense." App. 7. As a consequence, although the name of the prior offense may have been technically relevant, it addressed no detail in the definition of the prior-conviction element that would not have been covered by the stipulation or admission. Logic, then, seems to side with Old Chief.
cance, and so to implicate the law's moral underpinnings and a juror's obligation to sit in judgment. Thus, the prosecution may fairly seek to place its evidence before the jurors, as much to tell a story of guiltiness as to support an inference of guilt, to convince the jurors that a guilty verdict would be morally reasonable as much as to point to the discrete elements of a defendant's legal fault. Cf. United States v. Gilliam, 994 F.2d 97, 100-102 (CA2), cert. denied, 510 U. S. 927 (1993).
jurors' minds simply from the experience of a trial itself. The use of witnesses to describe a train of events naturally related can raise the prospect of learning about every ingredient of that natural sequence the same way. If suddenly the prosecution presents some occurrence in the series differently, as by announcing a stipulation or admission, the effect may be like saying, "never mind what's behind the door," and jurors may well wonder what they are being kept from knowing. A party seemingly responsible for cloaking something has reason for apprehension, and the prosecution with its burden of proof may prudently demur at a defense request to interrupt the flow of evidence telling the story in the usual way.
In sum, the accepted rule that the prosecution is entitled to prove its case free from any defendant's option to stipulate the evidence away rests on good sense. A syllogism is not a story, and a naked proposition in a courtroom may be no match for the robust evidence that would be used to prove it. People who hear a story interrupted by gaps of abstraction may be puzzled at the missing chapters, and jurors asked to rest a momentous decision on the story's truth can feel put upon at being asked to take responsibility knowing that more could be said than they have heard. A convincing tale can be told with economy, but when economy becomes a break in the natural sequence of narrative evidence, an assurance that the missing link is really there is never more than second best.
supposes that, despite the venerable history of the privilege against selfincrimination, jurors may not recall that someone accused of crime need not explain the evidence or avow innocence beyond making his plea. See, e. g., Lakeside v. Oregon, 435 U. S. 333,340, and n. 10 (1978). The assumption that jurors may have contrary expectations and be moved to draw adverse inferences against the party who disappoints them undergirds the rule that a defendant can demand an instruction forbidding the jury to draw such an inference.
ant falls within the class of crimes that Congress thought should bar a convict from possessing a gun, and this point may be made readily in a defendant's admission and underscored in the court's jury instructions. Finally, the most obvious reason that the general presumption that the prosecution may choose its evidence is so remote from application here is that proof of the defendant's status goes to an element entirely outside the natural sequence of what the defendant is charged with thinking and doing to commit the current offense. Proving status without telling exactly why that status was imposed leaves no gap in the story of a defendant's subsequent criminality, and its demonstration by stipulation or admission neither displaces a chapter from a continuous sequence of conventional evidence nor comes across as an officious substitution, to confuse or offend or provoke reproach.
the general rule when proof of convict status is at issue, just as the prosecutor's choice will generally survive a Rule 403 analysis when a defendant seeks to force the substitution of an admission for evidence creating a coherent narrative of his thoughts and actions in perpetrating the offense for which he is being tried.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE SCALIA, and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.
course, require some jury instruction to explain it (just as it will require some discretion when the indictment is read). A redacted judgment in this case, for example, would presumably have revealed to the jury that Old Chief was previously convicted in federal court and sentenced to more than a year's imprisonment, but it would not have shown whether his previous conviction was for one of the business offenses that do not count, under § 921(a)(20). Hence, an instruction, with the defendant's consent, would be necessary to make clear that the redacted judgment was enough to satisfy the status element remaining in the case. The Government might, indeed, propose such a redacted judgment for the trial court to weigh against a defendant's offer to admit, as indeed the Government might do even if the defendant's admission had been received into evidence.
11 In remanding, we imply no opinion on the possibility of harmless error, an issue not passed upon below.
§ 922(g)(1) can force the Government to accept his concession to the prior conviction element of that offense, thereby precluding the Government from offering evidence on this point. I therefore dissent.
of its case against petitioner with direct proof of his prior conviction.
The structure of § 922(g)(1) itself shows that Congress envisioned jurors' learning the name and basic nature of the defendant's prior offense. Congress enacted § 922(g)(1) to prohibit the possession of a firearm by any person convicted of "a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year." Section 922(g)(1) does not merely prohibit the possession of firearms by "felons," nor does it apply to all prior felony convictions. Rather, the statute excludes from § 922(g)(1)'s coverage certain business crimes and state misdemeanors punishable by imprisonment of two years or less. § 921(a)(20). Within the meaning of § 922(g)(1), then, "a crime" is not an abstract or metaphysical concept. Rather, the Government must prove that the defendant committed a particular crime. In short, under § 922(g)(1), a defendant's prior felony conviction connotes not only that he is a prior felon, but also that he has engaged in specific past criminal conduct.
Even more fundamentally, in our system of justice, a person is not simply convicted of "a crime" or "a felony." Rather, he is found guilty of a specified offense, almost always because he violated a specific statutory prohibition. For example, in the words of the order that the Government offered to prove petitioner's prior conviction in this case, petitioner "did knowingly and unlawfully assault Rory Dean Fenner, said assault resulting in serious bodily injury, in violation of Title 18 U. S. C. §§ 1153 and 113(f)." App. 18. That a variety of crimes would have satisfied the prior conviction element of the § 922(g)(1) offense does not detract from the fact that petitioner committed a specific offense. The name and basic nature of petitioner's crime are inseparable from the fact of his earlier conviction and were therefore admissible to prove petitioner's guilt.
§ 922(g)(1) offense-possession of a "firearm." The Government submitted evidence showing that petitioner possessed a 9-mm. semiautomatic pistol. Although petitioner's possession of any number of weapons would have satisfied the requirements of § 922(g)(1), obviously the Government was entitled to prove with specific evidence that petitioner possessed the weapon he did. In the same vein, consider a murder case. Surely the Government can submit proof establishing the victim's identity, even though, strictly speaking, the jury has no "need" to know the victim's name, and even though the victim might be a particularly well loved public figure. The same logic should govern proof of the prior conviction element of the § 922(g)(1) offense. That is, the Government ought to be able to prove, with specific evidence, that petitioner committed a crime that came within § 922(g)(1)'s coverage.
"There is, accordingly, no question that propensity would be an 'improper basis' for conviction and that evidence of a prior conviction is subject to analysis under Rule 403 for relative probative value and for prejudicial risk of misuse as propensity evidence." Ante, at 182.
prior offense generally carries a risk of unfair prejudice to the defendant." Ante, at 185.
Yes, to be sure, Rule 404(b) provides that "[e]vidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith." But Rule 404(b) does not end there. It expressly contemplates the admission of evidence of prior crimes for other purposes, "such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident." The list is plainly not exhaustive, and where, as here, a prior conviction is an element of the charged offense, neither Rule 404(b) nor Rule 403 can bar its admission. The reason is simple: In a prosecution brought under § 922(g)(1), the Government does not submit evidence of a past crime to prove the defendant's bad character or to "show action in conformity therewith." It tenders the evidence as direct proof of a necessary element of the offense with which it has charged the defendant. To say, as the Court does, that it "unfairly" prejudices the defendant for the Government to establish its § 922(g)(1) case with evidence showing that, in fact, the defendant did commit a prior offense misreads the Rules of Evidence and defies common sense.
might have arisen from the introduction of petitioner's prior conviction.
"And the defendant having been convicted on his plea of guilty of the offense charged in Count II of the indictment in the above-entitled cause, to-wit: That on or about the 18th day of December 1988, at Browning, in the State and District of Montana, and on and within the exterior boundaries of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, being Indian country, JOHNNY LYNN OLD CHIEF, an Indian person, did knowingly and unlawfully assault Rory Dean Fenner, said assault resulting in serious bodily injury, in violation of Title 18 U. S. C. §§ 1153 and 113(f)." App. 18.
The order went on to say that petitioner was sentenced for a term of 60 months' imprisonment, to be followed by two years of supervised release.
assault, such as the date, the location, and the victim's name? Or perhaps the Court finds that introducing the order risks a verdict "tainted by improper considerations" simply because the § 922(g)(1) charge was joined with counts charging petitioner with using a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 924(c), and with committing an assault with a dangerous weapon, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1153 and 18 U. S. C. § 113(c) (1988 ed.)? Under the Court's nebulous standard for admission of prior felony evidence in a § 922(g)(1) prosecution, these are open questions.
More troubling still is the Court's retreat from the fundamental principle that in a criminal prosecution the Government may prove its case as it sees fit. The Court reasons that, in general, a defendant may not stipulate away an element of a charged offense because, in the usual case, "the prosecution with its burden of persuasion needs evidentiary depth to tell a continuous story." Ante, at 190. The rule has, however, "virtually no application when the point at issue is a defendant's legal status, dependent on some judgment rendered wholly independently of the concrete events of later criminal behavior charged against him." Ibid. Thus, concludes the Court, there is no real difference between the "evidentiary significance" of a defendant's concession and that of the Government's proof of the prior felony with the order of conviction. Ante, at 191. Since the Government's method of proof was more prejudicial than petitioner's admission, it follows that the District Court should not have admitted the order reflecting his conviction when petitioner had conceded that element of the offense. Ibid.
On its own terms, the argument does not hold together.
tradition of lawful gun ownership in this country, see Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600, 610-612 (1994). "'Doubt as to the criminality of [the defendant's] conduct may influence the jury when it considers the possession element.'" United States v. Barker, 1 F.3d 957, 960 (1993) (quoting United States v. Collamore, 868 F.2d 24, 28 (CA1 1989)), modified, 20 F.3d 365 (CA9 1994).
or he may do nothing at all. Whatever his choice, the Government still carries the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt on each element.
It follows from these principles that a defendant's stipulation to an element of an offense does not remove that element from the jury's consideration. The usual instruction regarding stipulations in a criminal case reflects as much: "When the attorneys on both sides stipulate or agree as to the existence of a fact, you may accept the stipulation as evidence and regard that fact as proved. You are not required to do so, however, since you are the sole judge of the facts." 1 E. Devitt, C. Blackmar, M. Wolff, & K. O'Malley, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions § 12.03, p. 333 (4th ed. 1992). Obviously, we are not dealing with a stipulation here. A stipulation is an agreement, and no agreement was reached between petitioner and the Government in this case. Does the Court think a different rule applies when the defendant attempts to stipulate, over the Government's objection, to an element of the charged offense? If so, that runs counter to the Constitution: The Government must prove every element of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt, In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 361 (1970), and the defendant's strategic decision to "agree" that the Government need not prove an element cannot relieve the Government of its burden, see Estelle, supra, at 69-70. Because the Government bears the burden of proof on every element of a charged offense, it must be accorded substantial leeway to submit evidence of its choosing to prove its case.
recognizes an adversary system as the proper method of determining guilt, and the Government, as a litigant, has a legitimate interest in seeing that cases in which it believes a conviction is warranted are tried before the tribunal which the Constitution regards as most likely to produce a fair result." 380 U. S., at 36. A defendant who concedes the prior conviction element of the § 922(g)(1) offense may be effectively trying to waive his right to a jury trial on that element. Unless the Government agrees to this waiver, it runs afoul of Rule 23(a) and Singer.
The Court manufactures a new rule that, in a § 922(g)(1) case, a defendant can force the Government to accept his admission to the prior felony conviction element of the offense, thereby precluding the Government from offering evidence to directly prove a necessary element of its case. I cannot agree that it "unfairly" prejudices a defendant for the Government to prove his prior conviction with evidence that reveals the name or basic nature of his past crime. Like it or not, Congress chose to make a defendant's prior criminal conviction one of the two elements of the § 922(g)(1) offense. Moreover, crimes have names; a defendant is not convicted of some indeterminate, unspecified "crime." Nor do I think that Federal Rule of Evidence 403 can be read to obviate the well accepted principle, grounded in both the Constitution and in our precedent, that the Government may not be forced to accept a defendant's concession to an element of a charged offense as proof of that element. I respectfully dissent.

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