94
Kennedy, J., dissenting
sanity." Post, at 118, n. 13. A verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity is neither equivalent nor comparable to a verdict of not guilty standing alone. We would not allow a State to evade its burden of proof by replacing its criminal law with a civil system in which there is no presumption of innocence and the defendant has the burden of proof. Nor should we entertain the proposition that this case differs from a conviction of guilty because petitioner has been adjudged "not guilty by reason of insanity," rather than "guilty but insane." Petitioner has suggested no grounds on which to distinguish the liberty interests involved or procedural protections afforded as a consequence of the State's ultimate choice of nomenclature. The due process implications ought not to vary under these circumstances. This is a criminal case in which the State has complied with the rigorous demands of In re Winship.
The majority's failure to recognize the criminal character of these proceedings and its concomitant standards of proof leads it to conflate the standards for civil and criminal commitment in a manner not permitted by our precedents. O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U. S. 563 (1975), and Addington v. Texas, supra, define the due process limits of involuntary civil commitment. Together they stand for the proposition that in civil proceedings the Due Process Clause requires the State to prove both insanity and dangerousness by clear and convincing evidence. See O'Connor, supra, at 575; Adding-ton, supra, at 433. Their precedential value in the civil context is beyond question. But it is an error to apply these precedents, as the majority does today, to criminal proceedings. By treating this criminal case as a civil one, the majority overrules a principal holding in Jones v. United States, 463 U. S., at 354.
In Jones we considered the system of criminal commitment enacted by Congress for the District of Columbia. Id., at 356-358. Congress provided for acquittal by reason of insanity only after the Government had shown, beyond a rea-
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