Cite as: 511 U. S. 485 (1994)
Souter, J., dissenting
would suffice to displace the Ashwander rule, cf. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U. S. 645, 656 (1972), the burden argument here is not a strong one. The burdens of allowing defendants to challenge prior convictions at sentencing are not so severe, and are likely less severe than those associated with the alternative avenues for raising the very same claims.
For more than 20 years, as required by 21 U. S. C. §§ 851(c)(1) and (2), federal courts have entertained claims during sentencing under the drug laws that prior convictions offered for enhancement are "invalid" or were "obtained in violation of the Constitution," the unamended statute reflecting a continuing congressional judgment that any associated administrative burdens are justified and tolerable. For almost a decade, federal courts have done the same under the ACCA, see n. 2, supra, again without congressional notice of any judicial burden thought to require relief. See also Parke v. Raley, 506 U. S., at 32 ("In recent years state courts have permitted various challenges to prior convictions" during sentencing). As against this, the Court sees administrative burdens arising because "sentencing courts [would be required] to rummage through frequently nonexistent or difficult to obtain state-court transcripts or records that may date from another era, and may come from any of the 50 States." Ante, at 496. It would not be sentencing courts that would have to do this rummaging, however, but defendants seeking to avoid enhancement, for no one disagrees that the burden of showing the invalidity of prior convictions would rest on the defendants.
Whatever administrative benefits may flow from insulating sentencing courts from challenges to prior convictions will likely be offset by the administrative costs of the alternative means of raising the same claims. The Court acknowledges that an individual still in custody for a state conviction relied upon for enhancement may attack that conviction through state or federal habeas review and, if successful, "may . . . apply for reopening any federal sentence enhanced by the
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