108
Opinion of the Court
sionmaker in the proceeding is final and bars retrial on the same charge." Id., at 211.
"The trial court entered findings denying the existence of each of the seven statutory aggravating circumstances, and as required by state law, the court then entered judgment in respondent's favor on the issue of death. That judgment, based on findings sufficient to establish legal entitlement to the life sentence, amounts to an acquittal on the merits and, as such, bars any re-trial of the appropriateness of the death penalty." Ibid. (emphasis added).
Rumsey thus reaffirmed that the relevant inquiry for double-jeopardy purposes was not whether the defendant received a life sentence the first time around, but rather whether a first life sentence was an "acquittal" based on findings sufficient to establish legal entitlement to the life sentence—i. e., findings that the government failed to prove one or more aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.
A later case in the line, Poland v. Arizona, 476 U. S. 147 (1986), involved two defendants convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. On appeal the Arizona Supreme Court set aside the convictions (because of jury consideration of nonrecord evidence) and further found that there was insufficient evidence to support the one aggravating circumstance found by the trial court. It concluded, however, that there was sufficient evidence to support a different aggravating circumstance, which the trial court had thought not proved. The court remanded for retrial; the defendants were again convicted of first-degree murder, and a sentence of death was again imposed. Id., at 149-150. We decided that in those circumstances, the Double Jeopardy Clause was not implicated. We distinguished Bullington and Rumsey on the ground that in Poland, unlike in those cases, neither the judge nor the jury had "acquitted" the de-
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