Sandra Day O'Connor

“ Singer, supra, at 37. "The Constitution [p201] recognizes an adversary system as the proper method of determining guilt, and the Government, as a litigant, has a legitimate interest in seeing that cases in which it believes a conviction is warranted are tried before the tribunal which the Constitution regards as most likely to produce a fair result." 380 U.S. at 36. A defendant who concedes the prior conviction element of the § 922 (g) (1) offense may be effectively trying to waive his right to a jury trial on that element. ”

“ Since the Government's method of proof was more prejudicial than petitioner's admission, it follows that the District Court should not have admitted the order reflecting his conviction when petitioner had conceded that element of the offense. Ibid.
On its own terms, the argument does not hold together. A jury is as likely to be puzzled by the "missing chapter" resulting from a defendant's stipulation to his prior felony conviction as it would be by the defendant's conceding any other element of the crime. ”

“ Even more fundamentally, in our system of justice, a person is not simply convicted of "a crime" or "a felony." Ra-ther, he is found guilty of a specified offense, almost always because he violated a specific statutory prohibition. For example, in the words of the order that the Government offered to prove petitioner's prior conviction in this case, peti-tioner "did knowingly and unlawfully assault Rory Dean Fenner, said assault resulting in serious bodily injury, in viola-tion of Title 18 U.S.C. §§ 1153 and 113 (f) ." ”

“ Munoz, 36 F.3d 1229, 1233 (CA1 1994) ("The damage done to the defense is not a basis for exclusion; the question under Rule 403 is 'one of "unfair" prejudice—not of prejudice alone'") (citations omitted) , cert. ”