394
Opinion of the Court
state courts of last resort had held that the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar the introduction of evidence of prior convictions at resentencing in noncapital cases, Linam v. Griffin, 685 F. 2d 369, 374-376 (CA10 1982); Durham v. State, 464 N. E. 2d 321, 323-326 (Ind. 1984); People v. Sailor, 65 N. Y. 2d 224, 231-236, 480 N. E. 2d 701, 706-710 (1985), while another Federal Court of Appeals and two other state courts of last resort had held to the contrary, Briggs v. Procunier, 764 F. 2d 368, 371 (CA5 1985); State v. Hennings, 100 Wash. 2d 379, 386-390, 670 P. 2d 256, 259-262 (1983); Cooper v. State, 631 S. W. 2d 508, 513-514 (Tex. Crim. App. 1982). Moreover, the Missouri Court of Appeals had previously rejected precisely the same claim raised by respondent. State v. Lee, 660 S. W. 2d, at 399-400.
In its retroactivity analysis, the Court of Appeals dismissed the Tenth Circuit's decision in Linam as "ultimately based on trial error," 979 F. 2d, at 114, failing to recognize that the Linam court offered two "alternative bas[e]s for decision," 685 F. 2d, at 374—the second being that the "uniqueness of the death penalty unquestionably serves to distinguish DiFrancesco from Bullington," id., at 375. Nor did the Court of Appeals acknowledge the relevant portion of the Lee decision, in which a Missouri court held that "the death penalty second stage trial in a capital murder case bears no similarity to a determination of persistent offender status by a judge upon the basis of largely formal evidence." 660 S. W. 2d, at 400. Instead, the court focused on whether there was any "federal holding resting squarely on the proposition that Bullington does not apply to non-capital sentenc[e] enhancement proceedings." 979 F. 2d, at 114 (emphasis added).
At oral argument in this Court, counsel for respondent candidly admitted that he did not know "exactly what State courts had decided or when" with respect to the applicability of the Double Jeopardy Clause to noncapital sentencing. Tr. of Oral Arg. 31. In fact, two state courts had held the Dou-
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