674
Breyer, J., dissenting
damental procedural elements" that are essential to a fair trial. See ante, at 666, n. 7. But this "altering" requirement is not a problem here. No one denies that Cage's rule was a new one. "Whether a trial court's unconstitutional misdescription of the burden of proof in a criminal case violates the Due Process Clause was certainly an open question before Cage." Adams, 41 F. 3d, at 178; see also Gaines, supra, at 606-607 (noting that Cage led to reversals of numerous convictions that had been based on similar reasonable-doubt instruction); State v. Humphrey, 544 So. 2d 1188, 1192 (La. App.) (citing multiple decisions by Louisiana Supreme Court which had upheld reasonable-doubt instructions like that invalidated in Cage), cert. denied, 550 So. 2d 627 (1989). And our holding that such a misdescription of the burden of proof means that "there has been no jury verdict within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment," Sullivan, 508 U. S., at 280, certainly altered the understanding of the significance of such an error.
Insofar as the majority means to suggest that a rule may be sufficiently "new" that it does not apply retroactively but not "new enough" to qualify for the watershed exception, I note only that the cases establishing this exception suggest no such requirement. Rather than focus on the "degree of newness" of a new rule, these decisions emphasize that watershed rules are those that form part of the fundamental requirements of due process. See Teague, 489 U. S., at 311-312 (plurality opinion); Mackey, 401 U. S., at 693-694 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in part and dissenting in part); cf. O'Dell v. Netherland, 521 U. S. 151, 167 (1997) (holding that "narrow right of rebuttal" established by Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154 (1994), "has hardly alter[ed] our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements essential to the fairness of a proceeding" (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis in original)); Caspari v. Bohlen, 510 U. S. 383, 396 (1994) (holding that application of double jeopardy bar to successive noncapital sentencing would not be unfair and would enhance rather than hinder
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