Parke v. Raley, 506 U.S. 20, 9 (1992)

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28

PARKE v. RALEY

Opinion of the Court

jury has rendered guilt determination for current offense); Oyler, supra (due process does not require advance notice that trial for substantive offense will be followed by habitual-criminal accusation). As Justice Harlan observed 25 years ago in Spencer, the Court is not "a rule-making organ for the promulgation of state rules of criminal procedure." 385 U. S., at 564. "Tolerance for a spectrum of state procedures dealing with [recidivism] is especially appropriate" given the high rate of recidivism and the diversity of approaches that States have developed for addressing it. Id., at 566. We think this reasoning remains persuasive today; studies suggest that as many as two-thirds of those arrested have prior criminal records, often from other jurisdictions. See Department of Justice, supra, at 1; see also Spencer, supra, at 566, n. 9. The narrow question we face is whether due process permits Kentucky to employ its particular burden-of-proof scheme when allowing recidivism defendants to attack previous convictions as invalid under Boykin. In our view, Kentucky's burden-shifting rule easily passes constitutional muster.

B

As an initial matter, we decline to reach the broad argument advanced by petitioner and the Solicitor General that Kentucky's procedure is a fortiori constitutional because, with narrow exceptions not applicable here, due process does not require state courts to permit challenges to guilty pleas used for enhancement purposes at all. Petitioner did not make this argument below or in his petition for certiorari. We ordinarily do not reach issues not raised in the petition for certiorari, see Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 535 (1992), and it is unnecessary for us to determine whether States must allow recidivism defendants to challenge prior guilty pleas because Kentucky does allow such challenges. We turn, then, to the question before us.

It is beyond dispute that a guilty plea must be both knowing and voluntary. See, e. g., Boykin, 395 U. S., at 242; Mc-

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