Cite as: 510 U. S. 383 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
In Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), we held that the same standard for evaluating claims of ineffective assistance of counsel applies to trials and to capital sentencing proceedings because "[a] capital sentencing proceeding . . . is sufficiently like a trial in its adversarial format and in the existence of standards for decision, see [Bullington], that counsel's role in the proceeding is comparable to counsel's role at trial." Id., at 686-687. Because Strickland involved a capital sentencing proceeding, we left open the question whether the same test would apply to noncapital cases: "We need not consider the role of counsel in an ordinary sentencing, which may involve informal proceedings and standardless discretion in the sentencer, and hence may require a different approach to the definition of constitutionally effective assistance." Id., at 686; see also id., at 704-705 (Brennan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (" 'Time and again the Court has condemned procedures in capital cases that might be completely acceptable in an ordinary case. See, e. g., [Bullington]' ") (quoting Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U. S. 880, 913-914 (1983) (Marshall, J., dissenting)). See also Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U. S. 447, 458 (1984).
While our cases may not have foreclosed the application of the Double Jeopardy Clause to noncapital sentencing, neither did any of them apply the Clause in that context. On the contrary, Goldhammer and Strickland strongly suggested that Bullington was limited to capital sentencing. We therefore conclude 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. Cf. Stringer v. Black, 503 U. S., at 236-237.
This analysis is confirmed by the experience of the lower courts. Prior to the time respondent's conviction and sentence became final, one Federal Court of Appeals and two
393
Page: Index Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007