Opinion ID: 1172193
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Attempts at Distinguishing Bullington Are Unpersuasive

Text: The lead opinion acknowledges the existence of Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. 430, and its progeny, as well as that case's `hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence' analysis. (See lead opn., ante, at p. 836.) The opinion declines to apply that analysis because it finds this case is distinguishable from Bullington and, accordingly,  Bullington 's ... analysis does not apply here. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 836.) First, the lead opinion contends the Supreme Court has suggested it would not apply Bullington to noncapital sentencing hearings. (Lead opn., ante, at pp. 836-837.) Second, aside from any perceived direction from the Supreme Court, the lead opinion finds it significant that many of the procedural protections that apply in a [Penal Code] section 1025 trial rest on statutory, not federal constitutional, grounds. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 837.) Additionally, the lead opinion finds the procedures applicable to capital cases find no parallel in noncapital cases ( ibid. ); the degree of mental anguish faced by a criminal defendant subject to multiple prosecutions of enhancement provisions is insufficient to warrant double jeopardy protection ( id. at p. 838); and capital sentencing proceedings are distinguishable because they rely on proof of facts linked to the facts of the substantive crimes ( id., at p. 839; see also conc. opn. of Brown, J., ante, at p. 847). As I explain, any suggestions from the high court in post- Bullington cases are, at most, ambiguous. Nothing in Bullington itself suggests its analysis is limited to capital cases; more importantly, no Supreme Court case has ever held Bullington and its progeny are so limited. In addition, the distinction drawn by the lead opinion between statutory and constitutional protections is wholly unsupported; indeed, Bullington itself involved statutory procedural protections not mandated by the federal Constitution. Finally, the lead opinion's attempt to distinguish Bullington and this case on their respective facts is wholly unpersuasive.
The lead opinion asserts the high court in subsequent cases has suggested that Bullington does not apply to noncapital cases. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 836, italics added; but see conc. opn. of Brown, J., ante, at pp. 846-847 [noting the question remains unresolved].) Any such suggestion, of course, would not bind this court, which has an independent constitutional obligation to adjudicate the constitutional rights of litigants before it. Moreover, the two cases the lead opinion cites as making this suggestion, Caspari, supra, 510 U.S. 383, and Pennsylvania v. Goldhammer (1985) 474 U.S. 28 [106 S.Ct. 353, 88 L.Ed.2d 183] (per curiam) (hereafter Goldhammer ), are readily distinguishable. In Caspari, supra, 510 U.S. 383, the high court confronted an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision applying the Bullington analysis, in the context of a Missouri state prisoner's habeas corpus petition, to conclude prior felony convictions under Missouri's persistent offender statutes were subject to federal double jeopardy protections; thus, a state appellate court's reversal of the finding the petitioner was a persistent offender, due to insufficient evidence of the charged priors, barred retrial of the enhancement. ( Bohlen v. Caspari (8th Cir.1992) 979 F.2d 109.) The high court did not directly address the merits of this holding; instead, the court discussed whether the Eighth Circuit's decision applying double jeopardy protection to sentencing in a noncapital case was a new rule of law requiring prospective application only. ( Teague v. Lane, supra, 489 U.S. 288.) It was in this context the Supreme Court noted that Both Bullington and Rumsey were capital cases, and our reasoning in those cases was based largely on the unique circumstances of a capital sentencing proceeding. ( Caspari, supra, at p. 392 [114 S.Ct. at p. 954, 127 L.Ed.2d at p. 247].) The Caspari court did not hold Bullington was limited to capital cases. Rather, it made the observation noted above merely to support its conclusion that a reasonable jurist reviewing our precedents at the time respondent's conviction and sentence became final would not have considered the application of the Double Jeopardy Clause to a noncapital sentencing proceeding to be dictated by our precedents. ( Caspari, supra, 510 U.S. at p. 393 [114 S.Ct. at p. 955, 127 L.Ed.2d at p. 248].) Noting that federal and state courts had reached conflicting holdings on the issue ( id. at p. 395 [114 S.Ct. at p. 956, 127 L.Ed.2d at p. 249]), the court concluded that conflict concerned a `developmen[t] in the law over which reasonable jurists [could] disagree' ( ibid. ); accordingly, under Teague v. Lane , the Eighth Circuit erred in applying its ruling retroactively to defendant's benefit. Significantly for our purposes, the Supreme Court concluded its opinion in Caspari by stating:  we have no occasion to decide whether the Double Jeopardy Clause applies to noncapital sentencing, or whether Missouri's persistent-offender scheme is sufficiently trial-like to invoke double jeopardy protections.  ( Caspari, supra, at p. 397 [114 S.Ct. at p. 957, 127 L.Ed.2d at p. 250], italics added.) As is clear, therefore, Caspari did not hold Bullington was limited to capital cases; more to the point, neither did the high court suggest it would so hold in the future. The court held only that it had not previously found Bullington applicable to noncapital cases, and so the Eighth Circuit's decision to do so for the first time in the context of a final conviction challenged by way of a petition for federal habeas corpus was improper. Goldhammer, supra, 474 U.S. 28, presents similarly unimpressive evidence of a suggestion the high court would limit Bullington to capital cases. In that case, a per curiam opinion decided on summary disposition, the issue was whether, following a successful appeal by a defendant as to 34 of 112 counts of theft and forgery, the state was entitled to a remand for resentencing on other counts for which sentencing had been suspended. In other words, the case did not concern sentence enhancement proceedings, capital or otherwise. In a passage quoting DiFrancesco, supra, 449 U.S. at page 134 [101 S.Ct. at page 436], Goldhammer noted: the decisions of this Court `clearly establish that a sentenc[ing in a noncapital case ] does not have the qualities of constitutional finality that attend an acquittal. ( Goldhammer, supra, 474 U.S. at p. 30 [106 S.Ct. at pp. 353-354], italics added, brackets in original.) It would be a mistake to draw any significant inferences from the bracketed phrase. DiFrancesco was decided one year before Bullington and, at that time, the general rule was indeed that the high court's decisions in the sentencing area clearly establish that a sentence does not have the qualities of constitutional finality that attend an acquittal. ( DiFrancesco, supra, 449 U.S. at p. 134 [101 S.Ct. at p. 436].) The Supreme Court in Goldhammer no doubt simply added the bracketed phrase to adjust the quotation to take into account the holding of Bullington. At the time Goldhammer was decided (1985), as now, the only two cases in which the high court has found a sentencing proceeding subject to the double jeopardy clause have been capital cases. ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. 430; Rumsey, supra, 467 U.S. 203.) As we have explained, however, those cases did not turn on the fact the death penalty was involved. Caspari, supra, 510 U.S. 383, and Goldhammer, supra, 474 U.S. 28, thus provide weak evidence at best for discerning whether the Supreme Court would apply Bullington 's analysis to a noncapital case. Moreover, if we are attempting to predict what the high court would hold (as opposed to what it has held ), we must also consider Lockhart v. Nelson, supra, 488 U.S. 33, a case involving a hearing to determine noncapital sentence enhancements based on prior felony convictions. The Lockhart court assume[d], without deciding, the double jeopardy clause applied to such proceedings. ( Id. at p. 37, fn. 6 [109 S.Ct. at p. 289].) If the Supreme Court was of the opinion that Bullington was limited to capital proceedings, here was an opportunity to say so. If the court felt the double jeopardy clause was wholly inapplicable to sentencing proceedings not involving the death penalty, no reason appears to have decided Lockhart at all. In any event, even assuming for argument Caspari and Goldhammer contain a suggest[ion] (lead opn., ante, at pp. 836-837) that the Supreme Court would not now apply the federal double jeopardy clause to noncapital sentencing proceedings, the simple fact is the high court has never actually held Bullington and Rumsey are so limited. Until directed otherwise by a definitive ruling, we are not bound by perceived suggestions in Supreme Court case law. We must decide the case before us based on constitutional principles, not predictions of what another court  even a higher court  may do if faced with a justiciable controversy. The Supreme Court having never held Bullington and Rumsey to be limited to capital cases, I would follow what several courts from around the country have done (see, e.g., Bohlen v. Caspari, supra, 979 F.2d 109, 113, revd. on other grounds in Caspari, supra, 510 U.S. 383; Durosko v. Lewis (9th Cir.1989) 882 F.2d 357, 359; People v. Quintana (Colo. 1981) 634 P.2d 413, 419; Cooper v. State (Tex. Crim. App. 1982) 631 S.W.2d 508, 513-514 (hereafter Cooper ); State v. Hennings (1983) 100 Wn.2d 379 [670 P.2d 256, 259-262] (hereafter Hennings ) and apply Bullington 's hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test to this noncapital case to determine whether the federal double jeopardy clause applies here.
The lead opinion next asserts it is relevant that many of the procedural protections that apply in a Penal Code section 1025 trial rest on statutory, not federal constitutional, grounds. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 837.) It is true that many of a criminal defendant's procedural rights in a trial of sentence enhancement allegations find their origins in either a statute or a decision of this court, and not in the federal Constitution. For example, a trial court has discretion to order a separate hearing to determine the truth of the prior convictions ( People v. Calderon (1994) 9 Cal.4th 69 [36 Cal. Rptr.2d 333, 885 P.2d 83]), and, whether or not the trial is bifurcated, the defendant is entitled to a jury (Pen. Code, § 1025). The sentence enhancements must be pleaded and proved (see, e.g., Pen. Code, §§ 667, subd. (c), 1170.12, subd. (a), 667.5, subd. (d)), and the defendant must answer the charge in open court (Pen. Code, § 1025; see also Pen. Code, § 969 1/2 [when prior conviction allegation is added to complaint after defendant has pleaded guilty, he must be arraigned on the allegations]). The People bear the burden of proving the sentence enhancement beyond a reasonable doubt. ( People v. Tenner (1993) 6 Cal.4th 559, 566 [24 Cal. Rptr.2d 840, 862 P.2d 840]; see also Pen. Code, § 1096 [applying standard of beyond a reasonable doubt to criminal actions].) Despite the nonconstitutional origins of these procedural protections, however, it is the lesson of Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. 430, that when a state erects a system in which sentence-enhancing facts are adjudicated in a hearing bearing the hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence ( id. at p. 439 [101 S.Ct. at p. 1858]), the federal double jeopardy clause applies. Nothing in Bullington or its progeny suggests this analysis is dependent on whether the applicable procedural protections are constitutionally mandated. Indeed, in Bullington itself, the State of Missouri required procedural protections for its capital defendants that were not grounded in the federal Constitution. For example, Missouri law provided the jury must both designate in writing which aggravating factors it found true (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 565.012.4 (1978)) and apply a beyond a reasonable doubt standard to proof of those factors ( ibid. ; see Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at p. 434 [101 S.Ct. at pp. 1855-1856]). Neither procedural requirement is constitutionally mandated. (See People v. Rodriguez (1986) 42 Cal.3d 730, 777-778 [230 Cal. Rptr. 667, 726 P.2d 113].) The lead opinion fails to account for this aspect of Bullington. Accordingly, the lead opinion is simply wrong in claiming the constitutional nature of the protections involved is relevant (lead opn., ante, at p. 837) to determining whether Bullington 's analysis should apply here. Whether or not the procedural protections offered by a state for the adjudication of sentence-enhancing facts are constitutionally mandated is simply not a relevant consideration to the question before us.
The lead opinion next asserts that, any perceived suggestion in post- Bullington decisions aside, Bullington is substantively different from the present case, because it involved the death penalty, and the trial-like procedures that regulate imposition of the death penalty find no parallel in noncapital cases. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 837.) The lead opinion also finds Bullington distinguishable due to the unique nature ... of capital sentencing proceedings as compared to prior conviction proceedings. (Lead opn., ante, at pp. 839-840.) The lead opinion fails, however, to identify any persuasive reasons, in law or logic, why Bullington can or should be limited to capital cases. Death is indeed different, for the state's execution of a human being as a penal sanction is both final and irreversible, modern society's most serious criminal penalty. ( Lockett v. Ohio (1978) 438 U.S. 586, 604 [98 S.Ct. 2954, 2964, 57 L.Ed.2d 973] (opn. of Burger, C.J.) [the qualitative difference between death and other penalties calls for a greater degree of reliability when the death sentence is imposed]; Gardner v. Florida (1977) 430 U.S. 349, 358 [97 S.Ct. 1197, 1204, 51 L.Ed.2d 393] (plur. opn. by Stevens, J.) [because of finality and severity of the death penalty, [i]t is of vital importance to the defendant and the community that any decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion].) For purposes of double jeopardy and applying Bullington, however, simply labeling the death penalty as unique or different obscures the pertinent inquiry, namely, in what relevant way is the death penalty different for purposes of double jeopardy? [2] Significantly, the Bullington court itself did not rely on the mere fact the death penalty was involved. Indeed, it declined to overrule Stroud, supra, 251 U.S. 15, a capital case in which a defendant, initially sentenced to life imprisonment, was sentenced to suffer the death penalty on retrial following a reversal and a new trial. The Stroud court found no double jeopardy prohibition against imposing the death penalty on retrial. Had Bullington held capital cases per se were different, it should have overruled Stroud. Instead, Bullington distinguished Stroud as a case in which the penalty trial  unlike the one in Bullington  was not one like the trial on the question of guilt or innocence. ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at p. 446 [101 S.Ct. at p. 1862].) In Stroud, no standards had been enacted to guide the jury's discretion. ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at p. 439 [101 S.Ct. at p. 1858].) As the Supreme Court of Washington recognized: Although Bullington involved the death penalty sentencing provision, neither the reasoning nor the holding in that case depends upon the presence of the death penalty. ( Hennings, supra, 670 P.2d 256, 260.) Clearly the mere presence of the death penalty is not the key here. Nor can we say the trial-like procedures that governed Missouri's capital sentencing proceedings are different in any meaningful way from the procedures governing the bifurcated sentencing proceeding used to determine the truth of the prior felony conviction allegation here. In both types of proceedings, the defendant may obtain a separate hearing, must be notified of what the People plan to prove, and is entitled to a jury and to counsel. In both types of proceedings, the trier of fact is guided by established standards and must choose one of two alternative verdicts. In the Missouri proceeding, the choices are death or life imprisonment without parole for 50 years. In the hearing in this case, the jury must decide whether the alleged prior conviction is true or untrue. Like the Missouri capital presentence hearing, the People in the present case are required to prove the alleged sentence enhancement beyond a reasonable doubt. As Bullington stated, [t]he presentence hearing resembled and, indeed, in all relevant respects was like the immediately preceding trial on the issue of guilt or innocence. It was itself a trial on the issue of punishment.... ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at p. 438 [101 S.Ct. at p. 1858].) Stated differently, the hearing on the prior felony conviction allegations bore the hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence. ( Id. at p. 439 [101 S.Ct. at p. 1858].) Accordingly, the trial-like procedures that govern Missouri's capital sentencing hearing are nearly identical to those that apply to the bifurcated proceeding held in this case to determine defendant's prior felony convictions. I thus cannot agree with the lead opinion's contrary conclusion that Missouri's capital procedures find no parallel in noncapital cases. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 837.) The lead opinion also reasons that whereas Bullington held the relative level of embarrassment and anxiety a capital defendant would feel in facing a penalty phase trial was sufficiently comparable to the mental anguish suffered by a criminal defendant in the substantive guilt phase of a criminal trial ( Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. at p. 445 [101 S.Ct. at pp. 1861-1862]), the same cannot be said for a defendant facing a noncapital sentencing hearing. (Lead opn., ante, at pp. 838-839.) From this assessment of the emotional content of the trial experience, the lead opinion concludes Bullington should not be extended to noncapital sentencing proceedings. What is missing from this discussion is a persuasive rationale supporting the bald assertion that a criminal defendant's anxiety and insecurity when facing a possible life sentence as a result of past crimes is not equivalent to that experienced by a defendant being tried for a substantive criminal offense. In this era of Three-Strikes-and-You're-Out, the mental torment faced by defendants in a bifurcated sentencing hearing to determine the truth of prior conviction allegations seems at least comparable to that faced by defendants at the guilt phase of trial. Such prior convictions, if two or more are sustained, can lead to a minimum term in prison of twenty-five years to life, with a maximum term consisting of the balance of the defendant's natural life. (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subd. (e)(2)(A)(i)-(iii), 1170.12, subd. (c)(2)(A)(i)-(iii).) Even if, as in this case, only one qualifying prior felony conviction is alleged, sustaining the prior conviction allegation will require the sentence be doubled in length, essentially adding as much time in prison as defendant received for committing the substantive offense. (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subd. (e)(1), 1170.12, subd. (c)(1).) The lead opinion's comparison of the mental anguish suffered by capital versus noncapital defendants is thus unconvincing. Finally, the majority finds capital penalty trials are different in kind because the evidence presented in such hearings usually overlaps or supplements the evidence offered at the guilt phase of the trial, whereas in a trial of a prior conviction allegation, the factual determinations are generally divorced from the facts of the present offense, and the evidence does not overlap at all. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 839; see also conc. opn. of Brown, J., ante, at p. 847.) Even if true, this proposed distinction finds no support in Bullington whatsoever. I note the majority fails to cite Bullington or, indeed, any authority, indicating this evidentiary factor has any relevance to a double jeopardy analysis. Nor am I convinced the majority is correct as an empirical matter. Although [t]he circumstances of the crime of which the defendant was convicted in the present proceeding is an aggravating circumstance in this state's death penalty scheme (see Pen. Code, § 190.3, factor (a)), and a defendant is entitled to argue lingering doubt as a mitigating circumstance ( People v. Sanchez (1995) 12 Cal.4th 1, 77 [47 Cal. Rptr.2d 843, 906 P.2d 1129]), penalty phase evidence is often untethered to the facts of the crime. Instead, such evidence frequently recounts the defendant's past violent criminal conduct and/or explains aspects of the defendant's upbringing or mental health history, evidence, in other words, that does not overlap with the evidence presented at the guilt phase of the trial. Moreover, even in a bifurcated hearing on prior felony conviction allegations, the evidence must sometimes establish some aspect of the present crime over and above the minimum necessary to obtain a guilty verdict on the substantive offense. For example, to impose a five-year enhancement term for a prior felony conviction pursuant to Penal Code section 667, subdivision (a), the People must not only prove the existence of a qualifying prior conviction, but must also prove the present conviction qualifies as a serious felony under Penal Code section 1192.7, subdivision (c). (See People v. Equarte (1986) 42 Cal.3d 456 [229 Cal. Rptr. 116, 722 P.2d 890] [for assault with a deadly weapon to qualify as serious felony eligible for enhancement, state must prove personal weapon use or personal infliction of bodily injury]; People v. Thomas (1986) 41 Cal.3d 837 [226 Cal. Rptr. 107, 718 P.2d 94] [observing that for burglary to qualify as a serious felony eligible for enhancement, state must prove defendant personally used a gun or deadly weapon, or inflicted great bodily injury, or entered a residence].) In such a case, we cannot say the factual determinations [at the separate hearing] are generally divorced from the facts of the present offense.... (Lead opn., ante, at p. 839; see also conc. opn. of Brown, J., ante, at p. 847.) In sum, the majority proffers no persuasive reason to support its assertion that Bullington 's hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test is limited to capital cases.
The lead opinion announces other reasons for declining to apply the federal double jeopardy clause in this case, but none is persuasive. For example, the lead opinion asserts that a criminal defendant is not entitled as a federal constitutional matter to a trial, formal or informal, of sentencing issues, even when the sentence turns on factual determinations such as the existence of prior convictions. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 832.) Because California thus could choose to provide very few procedural protections for sentencing allegations, reasons the lead opinion, it could certainly choose to provide less than full protection. From this, the lead opinion concludes a trial of sentencing allegations arguably need not provide double jeopardy protection. ( Id. at p. 833, italics added.) This argument is beside the point. While it may be true our Legislature could choose to provide fewer procedural protections for sentence enhancements (see People v. Vera (1997) 15 Cal.4th 269, 286 [62 Cal. Rptr.2d 754, 934 P.2d 1279] (dis. opn. of Werdegar, J.)), it has not done so. If anything, legislative action has moved in the opposite direction, ensuring a high degree of procedural protection for defendants charged with sentence-enhancing allegations. (See, e.g., Pen. Code, §§ 667, subd. (c) [prior convictions under legislative Three Strikes law must be pled and proved], 1170.12, subd. (a) [same under initiative Three Strikes law], 667.5, subd. (d) [prior prison term enhancements shall not be imposed unless they are charged and admitted or found true], 1025 [right to jury for prior felony conviction enhancements], 1102 [rules of evidence apply to criminal actions]; see also Pen. Code, § 190.3 [in penalty phase of capital case, evidence of prior criminal activity shall not be admitted for an offense for which the defendant was prosecuted and acquitted].) The lead opinion also suggests federal double jeopardy cannot apply here because the Fifth Amendment specifically refers to the offense, and [t]he [double jeopardy] clause makes no express reference to sentencing determinations. (Lead opn., ante, at p. 834.) This argument is belied by Bullington itself, for the high court applied the federal double jeopardy clause to the Missouri capital sentencing trial although no offense was involved therein. Clearly any suggestion the federal double jeopardy clause is limited to criminal offenses is incorrect.
Citing several cases from the various federal circuits and other states, the majority admits these courts are divided as to whether the federal double jeopardy clause applies to proceedings analogous to the one here. (Lead opn., ante, at pp. 839-840; see also conc. opn. of Brown, J., ante, at p. 847.) As the lead opinion concedes, several federal circuits and state courts have profitably applied the Bullington hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test to find the federal double jeopardy clause applicable to noncapital sentencing proceedings. For example, in Briggs v. Procunier (5th Cir.1985) 764 F.2d 368 (hereafter Briggs ), Texas indicted the defendant for burglary and alleged two prior felony convictions which, if proved, required he be sentenced to life in prison. After a jury found the defendant guilty of the charged burglary, the state dismissed the charged prior convictions, citing proof problems. The defendant sought a new trial and the state joined the motion. When it was granted, the state again indicted the defendant for burglary. This time, however, the state charged two different prior felony convictions to enhance the sentence. ( Id. at p. 369.) The prior felonies were found true and the defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals applied the Bullington hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test to reverse the district court's denial of relief on habeas corpus. Like the death-sentencing procedure discussion in Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430 [101 S.Ct. 1852, 68 L.Ed.2d 270] (1981), the Texas scheme requires the state to prove at trial, beyond a reasonable doubt, the predicate facts, two prior convictions, necessary for the imposition of the harsher sentence. `The two prior convictions must be alleged in the indictment, and upon review the allegations are treated the same as allegations of the elements of a substantive offense.' [Citation.] Therefore, if the state fails to introduce sufficient evidence of the defendant's status as an habitual offender at a first trial, the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits the sentencing of the defendant as an habitual offender at a second trial. ( Briggs, supra, 764 F.2d at p. 371.) The Supreme Court of Washington reached the same conclusion in Hennings, supra, 670 P.2d 256. The defendant in Hennings was charged with robbery and with being a habitual criminal under Washington's habitual offender law. He ultimately pleaded guilty to robbery, but the trial court dismissed the habitual criminal charge, concluding the People failed to prove defendant's guilty plea in the prior conviction matter was knowingly and voluntarily obtained, a statutory requirement under Washington law. ( Id. at p. 257.) The Washington high court held double jeopardy precluded the People from recharging and retrying the habitual criminal allegation. The court explained that, like the capital proceeding at issue in Bullington, supra, 451 U.S. 430, a habitual offender determination under Washington law takes place in a separate proceeding in which the state bears the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In addition, should the allegation be proved, the range of penalties is strictly circumscribed: If the sentence is not suspended, the habitual offender must be sentenced to life imprisonment; there is no other sentence. ( Hennings, supra, 670 P.2d at p. 258.) The similarities [between Bullington and the Washington habitual offender law] indicate that under Bullington double jeopardy principles should apply to Washington's habitual criminal proceedings. ( Hennings, supra, 670 P.2d at p. 260.) As illustrated by Briggs, supra, 764 F.2d 368, and Hennings, supra, 670 P.2d 256, the majority rule that has emerged from the federal circuit courts and state high courts is this: Bullington 's hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test is the applicable standard to determine whether noncapital sentencing proceedings are subject to the federal double jeopardy clause. As in Briggs and Hennings, many courts have found double jeopardy applies to bar retrial of a noncapital sentencing allegation because the state law at issue bore the hallmarks of a trial on guilt. (In addition to Briggs, supra, 764 F.2d 368 [Fifth Circuit], and Hennings, supra, 670 P.2d 256 [Washington], see, e.g., Bohlen v. Caspari, supra, 979 F.2d at p. 113, revd. on other grounds in Caspari, supra, 510 U.S. 383 [8th Circuit, interpreting Missouri habitual offender law]; Nelson v. Lockhart (8th Cir.1987) 828 F.2d 446, 447-448, revd. on other grounds, Lockhart v. Nelson, supra, 488 U.S. 33 [interpreting Arkansas habitual offender law]; Durosko v. Lewis, supra, 882 F.2d at p. 359 [Ninth Circuit interpreting Arizona law]; People v. Quintana, supra, 634 P.2d at p. 419 [Colorado]; Cooper, supra, 631 S.W.2d at pp. 513-514 [Texas]; Ex Parte Augusta (Tex. Crim. App. 1982) 639 S.W.2d 481, 484 [following Cooper ]; cf. DeBussi v. State (Miss. 1984) 453 So.2d 1030, 1032-1033 [applying a Bullington -type analysis to conclude double jeopardy under the Mississippi Constitution barred retrial of habitual offender allegation].) Other courts have applied Bullington 's hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test to noncapital sentencing proceedings to come to a contrary conclusion, i.e., that the sentencing law at issue did not bear sufficient similarity to a trial on the question of guilt. Accordingly, these courts have found double jeopardy did not prohibit a retrial under the particular statutory scheme at issue. For example, in Wilmer v. Johnson (3d Cir.1994) 30 F.3d 451 (hereafter Wilmer ), a challenge to a Pennsylvania drug trafficker sentence enhancement scheme, the appellate court applied the Bullington hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test to find double jeopardy did not apply. Noting the state was permitted to appeal the sentence in the particular statutory sentencing scheme at issue, the Wilmer court concluded there would be no second trial. More importantly, only a preponderance of the evidence test was applicable. The lower standard of proof signifies a more lax procedure which in turn signifies that a hearing is not, in the Bullington calculus, trial-like. ( Wilmer, supra, 30 F.3d at pp. 457-458.) Contrary to the suggestion of the majority that Wilmer held double jeopardy could not apply to noncapital sentencing because of the absence of the death penalty, the Wilmer court applied Bullington 's hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test and concluded the state sentencing scheme at issue there was insufficiently analogous to a trial on guilt. People v. Levin (1993) 157 Ill.2d 138 [191 Ill.Dec. 72, 623 N.E.2d 317], which dealt with the Illinois habitual offender statute, also applied the Bullington analysis to a noncapital case before finding double jeopardy did not apply. The legislature has fashioned the habitual-criminal sentencing proceeding to be less formalized than a trial. Indeed, the paucity of due process protections at sentencing supports the conclusion that the legislature has deemed the defendant's interests at this stage of the proceeding to warrant fewer of those protections than at trial. We conclude that the separate hearing procedure under our Act bears insufficient formalities of a trial to render that factor analogous to the separate hearing procedure in Bullington and to this defendant's trial on the issue of guilt. (623 N.E.2d at p. 325.) In other words, the separate hearing held pursuant to Illinois's habitual offender statute does not bear the hallmarks of a trial on guilt, so double jeopardy does not apply. Other cases applying the Bullington hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test to noncapital sentencing proceedings and finding such hallmarks absent include Woodall v. U.S. (8th Cir.1995) 72 F.3d 77, 79-80 (interpreting federal Armed Career Criminal Act), State v. Sowards (1985) 147 Ariz. 156 [709 P.2d 513, 515] (Arizona), State v. Cobb (Mo. 1994) 875 S.W.2d 533, 535 (hereafter Cobb ) (Missouri), [3] Fitzpatrick v. State (1981) 194 Mont. 310 [638 P.2d 1002, 1017] (Montana), and People v. Sailor (1985) 65 N.Y.2d 224 [491 N.Y.S.2d 112, 480 N.E.2d 701] (New York). (See also State v. Avila (1985) 147 Ariz. 330 [710 P.2d 440, 445-446] [quoting Sowards with approval]; cf. State v. Ledbetter (1997) 240 Conn. 317 [692 A.2d 713, 717-718] [suggesting Bullington applies to state's noncapital persistent offender law, but concluding defendant waived the claim].) All of these cases recognize the applicable test in determining whether double jeopardy applies to bar retrial is whether the noncapital sentencing scheme bears sufficient similarity to a trial on guilt so that one can conclude, as in Bullington, that a not true finding operates as an acquittal of the sentencing allegation. (See, e.g., Woodall v. U.S., supra, 72 F.3d at p. 79 [emphasizing government's burden of proof is only by a preponderance of evidence to conclude double jeopardy does not apply].) The majority's attempt (lead opn., ante, at pp. 839-840; conc. opn. of Brown, J., ante, at p. 847) to distinguish these cases wholesale as insufficiently impressed with the unique nature and constitutional origins of the death penalty is flawed, relying as it does on an unjustified embellishment of the Supreme Court's rationale in Bullington. Although Bullington involved a capital sentencing scheme, the mere possibility of the death penalty was not cited by the Bullington court as central to its rationale. As noted above, the Supreme Court of Washington has explicitly rejected the notion that Bullington was premised on the fact the death penalty was there involved. (See Hennings, supra, 670 P.2d at p. 260; see also Linam v. Griffin (10th Cir.1982) 685 F.2d 369, 376-377 (conc. opn. of Anderson, J.) [fact death penalty was involved in Bullington was not relied on nor even articulated by the Supreme Court as a basis for its holding (italics omitted)].) To the extent the majority relies on this death-penalty-only view of Bullington, it relies on an augmentation of that decision's rationale that appears nowhere in the body of the opinion itself. The majority relies on cases which, admittedly, find Bullington does not apply to noncapital sentencing proceedings. In addition to espousing the minority rule, however, many of these cases employ faulty reasoning or announce their interpretation of Bullington in dicta. For example, in State v. Aragon (1993) 116 N.M. 267 [861 P.2d 948], cited by the lead opinion in support (lead opn., ante, at p. 840), the New Mexico Supreme Court found that double jeopardy did not attach to New Mexico's habitual offender proceedings because the law does not create a substantive criminal offense. (See 861 P.2d at pp. 950-951 [we have determined that habitual offender proceedings do not involve a determination of guilt of any offense  (italics added)], 953 [double jeopardy [does] not attach to the habitual offender proceeding ... because ... there was no prosecution of an offense  (italics added)].) This reasoning misreads Bullington, for, as explained, ante, the jury in the Missouri capital sentencing trial in Bullington also did not try a separate offense. Instead, the Bullington jury was deciding between life or death as an appropriate sentence. Clearly, whether or not a sentencing scheme delineates an offense is not the test. Accordingly, Aragon 's reasoning is flawed. Denton v. Duckworth (7th Cir.1989) 873 F.2d 144 (hereafter Denton ), also cited by the majority in support (lead opn., ante, at p. 840; conc. opn. of Brown, J., ante, at p. 847), contains the same analytical flaw (873 F.2d at p. 148 [Indiana's habitual offender statute  does not create a separate offense. ... (italics added)]), but is unpersuasive for a more basic reason. In Denton, the defendant was convicted of rape and was also found to be a habitual offender under Indiana law based on his conviction of four prior unrelated felonies. After his rape conviction, one of the four prior felony convictions was vacated by a different court. The state moved to retry the habitual offender allegation with the remaining three prior felony allegations (only two were necessary), deleting the now-vacated conviction. In these circumstances, the court held retrial was permissible. Denton thus does not present a situation in which the state, with all its resources, failed to present sufficient evidence to convict. Instead, the matter was one of trial error for which the federal double jeopardy clause is inapplicable. ( Burks, supra, 437 U.S. at pp. 15-16 [98 S.Ct. at pp. 2149-2150].) As even the Denton court opined: This clearly is a case of `trial error,' and not of insufficiency of the evidence. ( Denton, supra, 873 F.2d at p. 148.) Any discussion in Denton of the application of Bullington was thus dictum. Linam v. Griffin, supra, 685 F.2d 369, also declares its interpretation of Bullington in dictum. In Linam, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals found a state appellate court's reversal of a noncapital sentence enhancement meets the Burks Court's definition of trial error and is not a true finding of inadequacy of evidence. ( Id. at p. 373.) Because only trial error was present in Linam, no double jeopardy bar to retrial applied irrespective of that court's views on Bullington. (See generally, Bohlen v. Caspari, supra, 979 F.2d at p. 114 [concluding Linam and Denton are distinguishable as cases involving trial error and not insufficiency of evidence]; Carpenter v. Chapleau (6th Cir.1996) 72 F.3d 1269, 1276 (dis. opn. of Moore, J.) [finding Denton 's and Linam 's discussion of Bullington to be dictum].) The majority's reliance on dicta in Denton, supra, 873 F.2d 144, and Linam, supra, 685 F.2d 369, is thus misplaced. The majority rule emerging from the federal circuit courts and the high courts from our sister states is this: The test to determine whether the federal double jeopardy clause applies to bar multiple retrials of noncapital sentencing determinations is Bullington 's hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test. The cases cited by the majority in support of its contrary position delineate a minority rule, and are for the most part weakly reasoned or announce their interpretation of Bullington in dictum. Because I find the majority rule better reasoned and thus more persuasive, I would apply Bullington 's hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence test to the facts of this case.