OCTOBER TERM, 1993
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit
No. 92-1500. Argued December 6, 1993—Decided February 23, 1994
The state trial judge sentenced respondent as a persistent offender following his conviction on three robbery counts, but the Missouri Court of Appeals reversed the sentence because there was no proof of prior convictions, as is necessary to establish persistent-offender status under state law. On remand, the trial judge resentenced respondent as a persistent offender based on evidence of prior felony convictions, rejecting his contention that allowing the State another opportunity to prove such convictions violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. In affirming, the State Court of Appeals agreed that there was no double jeopardy bar, as did the Federal District Court, which denied respondent's habeas corpus petition. However, in reversing, the Federal Court of Appeals extended the rationale of Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U. S. 430, a capital case, to hold that the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits a State from subjecting a defendant to successive noncapital sentence enhancement proceedings. The court ruled that taking that step did not require the announcement of a "new rule" of constitutional law, and thus that granting habeas relief to respondent would not violate the nonretroactivity principle of Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288, which prohibits such relief based on a rule announced after the defendant's conviction and sentence became final.
Held: 1. Because the State argued in the certiorari petition, as it had in the courts below and as it does in its brief on the merits, that the nonretro-activity principle barred the relief sought by respondent, this Court must apply Teague analysis before considering the merits of respondent's claim. See Graham v. Collins, 506 U. S. 461, 466-467. The Teague issue is a necessary predicate to the resolution of the primary question presented in the petition: whether the Double Jeopardy Clause should apply to successive noncapital sentence enhancement proceedings. Pp. 388-390. 2. The Court of Appeals erred in directing the District Court to grant respondent habeas relief because doing so required the announcement
383
Page: Index 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007