Cite as: 530 U. S. 466 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
Even though it is arguable that Almendarez-Torres was incorrectly decided,15 and that a logical application of our reasoning today should apply if the recidivist issue were
inaccurate and misleading. Post, at 536. Monge was another recidivism case in which the question presented and the bulk of the Court's analysis related to the scope of double jeopardy protections in sentencing. The dissent extracts from that decision the majority's statement that "the Court has rejected an absolute rule that an enhancement constitutes an element of the offense any time that it increases the maximum sentence." 524 U. S., at 729. Far from being part of "reasoning essential" to the Court's holding, post, at 536, that statement was in response to a dissent by Justice Scalia on an issue that the Court itself had, a few sentences earlier, insisted "was neither considered by the state courts nor discussed in petitioner's brief before this Court." 524 U. S., at 728. Moreover, the sole citation supporting the Monge Court's proposition that "the Court has rejected" such a rule was none other than Almendarez-Torres; as we have explained, that case simply cannot bear that broad reading. Most telling of Monge's distance from the issue at stake in this case is that the double jeopardy question in Monge arose because the State had failed to satisfy its own statutory burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had committed a prior offense (and was therefore subject to an enhanced, recidivism-based sentence). 524 U. S., at 725 ("According to California law, a number of procedural safeguards surround the assessment of prior conviction allegations: Defendants may invoke the right to a jury trial . . . ; the prosecution must prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt; and the rules of evidence apply"). The Court thus itself warned against a contrary double jeopardy rule that could "create disincentives that would diminish these important procedural protections." Id., at 734.
15 In addition to the reasons set forth in Justice Scalia's dissent, 523 U. S., at 248-260, it is noteworthy that the Court's extensive discussion of the term "sentencing factor" virtually ignored the pedigree of the pleading requirement at issue. The rule was succinctly stated by Justice Clifford in his separate opinion in United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214, 232-233 (1876): "[T]he indictment must contain an allegation of every fact which is legally essential to the punishment to be inflicted." As he explained in "[s]peaking of that principle, Mr. Bishop says it pervades the entire system of the adjudged law of criminal procedure, as appears by all the cases; that, wherever we move in that department of our jurisprudence, we come in contact with it; and that we can no more escape from it than from
489
Page: Index Previous 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007