250
Opinion of the Court
Nor is the question resolved by a series of three cases dealing with factfinding in capital sentencing. The first of these, Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U. S. 447 (1984), contains no discussion of the sort of factfinding before us in this case. It addressed the argument that capital sentencing must be a jury task and rejected that position on the ground that capital sentencing is like sentencing in other cases, being a choice of the appropriate disposition, as against an alternative or a range of alternatives. Id., at 459.
Spaziano was followed in a few years by Hildwin v. Florida, 490 U. S. 638 (1989) (per curiam), holding that the determination of death-qualifying aggravating facts could be entrusted to a judge, following a verdict of guilty of murder and a jury recommendation of death, without violating the Sixth Amendment's jury clause. Although citing Spaziano as authority, 490 U. S., at 639-640, Hildwin was the first case to deal expressly with factfinding necessary to authorize imposition of the more severe of alternative sentences, and thus arguably comparable to factfinding necessary to expand the sentencing range available on conviction of a lesser crime than murder. Even if we were satisfied that the analogy was sound, Hildwin could not drive the answer to the Sixth Amendment question raised by the Government's position here. In Hildwin, a jury made a sentencing recommendation of death, thus necessarily engaging in the factfinding required for imposition of a higher sentence, that is, the dethe "tradition" of recidivism's treatment as a sentencing factor, ibid., or why it never announced the unqualified holding that today's dissenters claim to find in it. Admittedly, as the dissent here notes, the dissenters in Almendarez-Torres criticized the majority for what they considered the majority's unsupportable restraint in restricting their holding to recidivism. But that very criticism would have lacked its target if the Almendarez-Torres majority had not so doggedly refrained from endorsing the general principle the dissent in this case now attributes to them. The majority and the dissenters in Almendarez-Torres disagreed over the legitimacy of the Court's decision to restrict its holding to recidivism, but both sides agreed that the Court had done just that.
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