726
Opinion of the Court
evidence was insufficient to trigger the sentence enhancement and that a remand for retrial on the allegation would violate double jeopardy principles.
The California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal's ruling that the Double Jeopardy Clause bars retrial of prior conviction allegations. The three-justice plurality noted this Court's traditional reluctance to apply double jeopardy principles to sentencing proceedings and concluded that the exception recognized in Bullington, supra, did not apply. In Bullington, we held that a capital defendant who had received a life sentence during a penalty phase that bore "the hallmarks of [a] trial on guilt or innocence" could not be resentenced to death upon retrial following appeal. Here, the plurality acknowledged that California's proceedings to assess the truth of prior conviction allegations have the hallmarks of a trial, but it found Bullington distinguishable on several grounds. First, the plurality cited statements by this Court indicating that Bullington's rationale is confined to the unique circumstances of capital cases. See 16 Cal. 4th, at 836-837, 941 P. 2d, at 1128 (citing Caspari v. Bohlen, 510 U. S. 383, 392 (1994); Pennsylvania v. Goldhammer, 474 U. S. 28, 30 (1985) (per curiam)). The plurality also reasoned that capital sentencing procedures are mandated by the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Federal Constitution, whereas the procedural protections accorded in California's sentence enhancement proceedings rest on statutory grounds. 16 Cal. 4th, at 837, 941 P. 2d, at 1128. The plurality then cited the breadth and subjectivity of the factual determinations at issue in the capital sentencing context, as well as the financial and emotional burden that the penalty phase of a capital case places on a defendant. Id., at 838- 839, 941 P. 2d, at 1129. Finally, the plurality explained that a qualifying strike involves a finding of a particular "status" that may be made from the record of the prior conviction, while the jury's sentencing determination in a capital case "depends on the specific facts of the defendant's present
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