Cite as: 515 U. S. 389 (1995)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
offenders." Id., at 247-248. Thus, the entire rationale of the Williams opinion focused on the importance of evidence that reveals the character of the offender. Not a word in Justice Black's opinion even suggests that if evidence adduced at sentencing were used to support a sentence for an offense more serious than the offense of conviction, the defendant would not have been placed in jeopardy for that more serious offense.2
The Court also relies on McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79 (1986), suggesting that McMillan "necessarily impl[ies]" that consideration of "offender-specific information at sentencing" does not "result in 'punishment for such conduct.' " Ante, at 400-401. I believed at the time and continue to believe that McMillan was wrongly decided. However, even accepting the Court's conclusion in McMillan, that case does not support the majority's position. In United States v. Halper, 490 U. S. 435, 448 (1989), and Department of Revenue of Mont. v. Kurth Ranch, 511 U. S. 767, 779-780 (1994), we emphatically rejected the proposition that punishment under the Double Jeopardy Clause only occurs when a court imposes a sentence for an offense that is proven beyond a reasonable doubt at a criminal trial.
The case on which the Court places its principal reliance, Williams v. Oklahoma, 358 U. S. 576 (1959), is not controlling precedent. Williams was decided over 10 years before the Court held in Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784 (1969), that the Double Jeopardy Clause "should apply to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment." Id., at 794. Thus, Williams did not even apply the Double Jeopardy Clause
2 The majority's reliance on Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738 (1994), is similarly unavailing. In Nichols, the Court permitted the inclusion of an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction in the calculation of a defendant's criminal history. However, as I have noted above, the inclusion of an offense in criminal history for sentencing purposes treats that offense as relevant to the character of the offender rather than to the character of the offense.
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