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In an application in a federal court by a state prisoner for a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. 2254(d) establishes a presumption of correctness for "a determination after a hearing on the merits of a factual issue, made by a State court of competent jurisdiction in a proceeding to which the applicant for the writ and the State . . . were parties, evidenced by a written finding, written opinion, or other reliable and adequate written indicia." An exception to this presumption occurs where the federal habeas court, on reviewing the state-court record, concludes that the state court's factual finding "is not fairly supported by the record." Respondent was convicted of murder at a jury trial in an Ohio court. At the trial, the prosecution sought to prove a "specification," for purposes of obtaining the death penalty against respondent. There were admitted into evidence, to be considered only in connection with the specification, a copy of an Illinois indictment, a copy of a so-called "conviction statement," and the transcript of a hearing in an Illinois trial court in which respondent pleaded guilty to charges in the indictment. Before admitting such evidence, the Ohio trial court conducted a hearing to determine whether respondent's guilty plea to the Illinois charge was knowing and voluntary. On review of the Illinois records and upon testimony by respondent as to his recollection of the Illinois proceedings, the court held that respondent's had intelligently and voluntarily entered his plea of guilty in the Illinois court. Upholding respondent's murder conviction, the Ohio Court of Appeals held that the specification based on the prior Illinois conviction was adequately proved and that the trial court did not err in ruling that respondent's guilty plea in the Illinois court was knowing and voluntary and should be submitted to the jury. Subsequently, respondent brought a habeas corpus proceeding in Federal District Court, which denied relief. The United States Court of Appeals reversed, holding that respondent's plea of guilty to the previous Illinois charge was invalid and that its admission into evidence at the Ohio trial rendered respondent's ensuing murder conviction unconstitutional. The court, noting that no express finding was made concerning respondent's credibility as a witness, credited his testimony at the Ohio trial court hearing, absent contrary evidence by the State. [459 U.S. 422, 423]
The admission in the Ohio murder trial of respondent's Illinois conviction based upon a guilty plea did not deprive respondent of any federal right. Pp. 430-439.
REHNQUIST, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C. J., and WHITE, POWELL, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p. 439. BLACKMUN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 447. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN, MARSHALL, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined, post, p. 447. [459 U.S. 422, 424]
Richard David Drake, Assistant Attorney General of Ohio, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were William J. Brown, Attorney General, and Simon B. Karas, Dain N. De Veny, and Dennis L. Sipe, Assistant Attorneys General.
John Czarnecki, by appointment of the Court, 455 U.S. 917 , argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue here is whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the vacation of respondent's Ohio murder conviction. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which granted respondent's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Lonberger v. Jago, 635 F.2d 1189 (1980), and Lonberger v. Jago, 651 F.2d 447 (1981), held that it did. The Court of Appeals held that respondent's plea of guilty to a previous Illinois felony charge, offered and admitted into evidence at his Ohio murder trial, was invalid under Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969). It went on to hold that the admission into evidence of the Illinois conviction at the Ohio trial rendered respondent's ensuing conviction in that proceeding unconstitutional under this Court's decision in Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109 (1967). The State claims that the Court of Appeals exceeded its authority, under our holding in Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539 (1981), in concluding that the prior Illinois conviction was invalid. It also contends that even if the Court of Appeals were warranted in so concluding, the admission of that conviction at the Ohio murder trial did not render the Ohio conviction constitutionally infirm. We granted certiorari to consider, inter alia, the interrelationship between Boykin v. Alabama, supra, and Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 637 (1976).
There is apparently no dispute with respect to the operative facts which led to respondent's indictment and conviction [459 U.S. 422, 425] for the murder of Charita Lanier in Toledo, Ohio, on the evening of January 29, 1975. Lanier was brutally murdered in the living room of her home during that evening; blood stains led from the living room to the kitchen, where the victim's partially clothed body was found in a freezer. An autopsy revealed that the victim bled to death after her throat had been slashed, and a bent, blood-stained knife found near the scene of the crime was identified as the murder weapon. The victim's clothing was torn and sperm was detected in her vaginal canal.
The morning after the murder, the victim's children told police that respondent, Robert Lonberger, had been at their home the previous evening. After the children had been sent to their upstairs bedroom, they heard their mother scream. When there was no response to his questions, the older child left his bedroom and went downstairs. The lights were out and when the child attempted to turn them on respondent grabbed his hand; he ordered the child back to bed. A pack of cigarettes of respondent's brand was found in the house and blood-stained articles of clothing were discovered in his possession.
Respondent was indicted by a state grand jury on two counts of "aggravated murder." The first count charged that respondent had murdered Lanier with "prior calculation and design," in violation of Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2903.01(A) (1975). The second count charged respondent with murder while committing rape, in violation of Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2903.01(B) (1975). 1 Both counts of aggravated murder included a "specification," described below, in which the prosecution alleged that respondent previously had been convicted of an "offense of which the gist was the purposeful [459 U.S. 422, 426] killing of or attempt to kill another." Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2929.04(A)(5) (1975). 2
Respondent pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the State sought at trial to prove the specification of prior conviction for attempt to kill by introducing the record of a conviction of respondent in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill. It is the introduction of this conviction into evidence in the Ohio murder trial which has been the focus of constitutional objection on the part of respondent since that time, and upon which the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit based its conclusion that respondent's conviction was constitutionally infirm. Because of its central role in this litigation, we find it desirable to describe in some detail the evidence before the Ohio court relating to this prior conviction.
It is fair to say that from the time the State first offered the record of the Illinois conviction until the present time, the opposing parties have never agreed as to the historical facts surrounding the acceptance of respondent's plea of guilty to an indictment returned by a grand jury in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., some three years before he was tried on the Ohio murder charge. The State offered in evidence at the Ohio trial a copy of the grand jury indictment forming the basis for the Illinois charge, a certified copy of an Illinois record called a "conviction statement," and the transcript of a hearing in the Circuit Court of Cook County occurring at the time respondent pleaded guilty. [459 U.S. 422, 427]
These documents show that respondent was indicted by the Cook County grand jury in May 1971 on four counts: aggravated battery against Dorothy Maxwell, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon against Dorothy Maxwell, intentionally and knowingly attempting to kill Dorothy Maxwell by cutting her with a knife, and aggravated battery against Wendtian Maxwell with a deadly weapon. The "conviction statement," prepared and authenticated by the Circuit Court of Cook County, recited in pertinent part that respondent was indicted for "AGGRAVATED BATTERY, ETC.," that on March 10, 1972, respondent withdrew an earlier plea of not guilty and entered a plea of guilty, and that after the court "fully explained to the Defendant . . . before the entry of said PLEA OF GUILTY, the consequences of entering such PLEA OF GUILTY, the said Defendant still persisted in his PLEA OF GUILTY in manner and form as charged in the indictment in this cause." App. 5. The third record offered in evidence in the Ohio proceedings is the transcript of the colloquy at the time of sentencing in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., id., at 6-15. It contains the following relevant exchanges at a time when the sentencing judge, respondent, respondent's attorney, and the prosecuting attorney were shown to be present in open court:
Respondent's appeal to the Ohio Court of Appeals was partially successful; that court found as a matter of state law that the jury's finding that respondent had not only murdered Charita Lanier, but raped her as well, did not satisfy the Ohio rule relating to proof of crime by circumstantial evidence. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-38. It did uphold the jury finding that respondent was guilty of the murder of Lanier, and that the specification based on the prior Illinois conviction was adequately proved. It reversed the judgment imposing a death penalty, and directed imposition of a sentence based solely on the conviction of murder. With respect to the admissibility and evidence of the prior Illinois conviction, the Ohio Court of Appeals said:
It was the record of these proceedings in the Ohio state courts that formed the basis of respondent's application for federal habeas in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The District Court denied relief, finding that "from a review of the record, this Court is satisfied that an ordinary person would have understood the nature of the charges to which petitioner was pleading guilty." Id., at A-31. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the judgment of the District Court, and ordered that a writ of habeas corpus issue. Lonberger v. Jago, 635 F.2d 1189 (1980). We granted certiorari, vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and remanded for reconsideration in the light of Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539 (1981). Marshall v. Lonberger, 451 U.S. 902 (1981). On remand the Court of Appeals adhered to its previous decision. Lonberger v. Jago, 651 F.2d 447 (1981). We again granted certiorari, 454 U.S. 1141 (1982), and we now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
The Court of Appeals, referring to its earlier opinion, stated:
Section 2254(d) establishes a presumption of correctness for "a determination after a hearing on the merits of a factual issue, made by a State court of competent jurisdiction in a proceeding to which the applicant for the writ and the State or an officer or agent thereof were parties, evidenced by a written finding, written opinion, or other reliable and adequate written indicia. . . ." One of the eight exceptions to this presumption of correctness, and the one relied upon by the Court of Appeals in this case, is where the federal habeas court, reviewing the state-court record offered to support the factual finding, "on a consideration of such part of the record as a whole concludes that such factual determination is not fairly supported by the record." 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(8).
In its treatment of the state courts' factual findings, the Court of Appeals failed in at least one major respect to accord those determinations the "high measure of deference," Sumner v. Mata, supra, to which they are entitled. This deference requires that a federal habeas court more than simply disagree with the state court before rejecting its factual determinations. Instead, it must conclude that the state court's findings lacked even "fair support" in the record. The Court of Appeals' treatment of the issue of respondent's credibility failed to satisfy this standard. Following a recital of the findings of the Ohio trial court, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit states that "[n]o explicit findings were made concerning Lonberger's credibility as a witness." 651 F.2d, at 448. Likewise, the Court of Appeals wrote:
We are unsure whether the Court of Appeals' reassessment of the effect of respondent's testimony at the Ohio state trial court hearing was undertaken because of the failure of the trial court to make express findings as to respondent's credibility, or whether the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit felt that it should assess for itself the weight that such evidence should have been accorded by the state trial court. In either event, we hold that it erroneously applied the "fairly supported by the record" standard enunciated in 28 U.S.C. 2254(d).
In LaVallee v. Delle Rose, 410 U.S. 690 (1973), we dealt with a state-court hearing in which the trial judge likewise failed to make express findings as to the defendant's credibility. We held that because it was clear under the applicable federal law that the trial court would have granted the relief sought by the defendant had it believed the defendant's testimony, its failure to grant relief was tantamount to an express finding against the credibility of the defendant. We think the same is true in the present case. The assumption referred to in Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 314 -315 (1963), quoted in LaVallee v. Delle Rose, supra, at 694, "that the state trier of fact applied correct standards of federal law to the facts . . ." leads inevitably to a similar conclusion here. Had the Ohio trial court credited respondent's insistence that he had only been advised of or been aware of the battery charge at the time he pleaded guilty in Illinois, the Ohio trial court would have surely refused to allow the record of the Illinois conviction in evidence to prove the specification of [459 U.S. 422, 434] attempted murder. The trial court's ruling allowing the record of conviction to be admitted in evidence in support of the specification is tantamount to a refusal to believe the testimony of respondent. 3
The Court of Appeals' reliance on respondent's testimony, discussed above, and the fact that "the state produced no contrary evidence," are quite wide of the mark for purposes of deciding whether factual findings are fairly supported by the record. Title 28 U.S.C. 2254(d) gives federal habeas courts no license to redetermine credibility of witnesses whose demeanor has been observed by the state trial court, but not by them. In United States v. Oregon Medical Society, 343 U.S. 326 (1952), commenting on the deference which this Court gave to the findings of a District Court on direct appeal from a judgment in a bench trial, we stated:
Thus, the factual conclusions which the federal habeas courts were bound to respect in assessing respondent's constitutional claims were the contents of the Illinois court records, the finding of the Ohio trial court that respondent was "an intelligent individual, well experienced in the criminal processes and well represented at all stages of the proceedings by competent and capable counsel in Illinois," supra, at 428, and the similar conclusion of the Ohio Court of Appeals, and the inferences fairly deducible from these facts. 4 These records and findings show, with respect to the attempted murder charge, that it was one of the four counts contained in the Cook County indictment returned against respondent. The "conviction certificate" recites that at the time respondent pleaded guilty, he was duly advised by the court of the consequences of pleading guilty, and nonetheless adhered to his plea. The transcript, as appears from its face and as found by the Ohio Court of Appeals, shows that respondent answered affirmatively that he was pleading guilty, inter alia, to the offense of "attempt on Dorothy Maxwell, with a knife . . . ." Respondent's attorney, in his presence, [459 U.S. 422, 436] stipulated that the indictment was "both sufficient in law and in fact to sustain the charges contained therein, to sustain a finding of guilty on the charges involving [respondent]." Ibid. There is perhaps an arguable conflict between the recitation of the "conviction certificate" and the transcript by reason of the latter's omission of the word "murder" after the word "attempt" in the colloquy between respondent and the court. For our purposes we assume that the transcript version, which is more favorable to respondent, was accurate.
It is well established that a plea of guilty cannot be voluntary in the sense that it constitutes an intelligent admission that the accused committed the offense unless the accused has received "real notice of the true nature of the charge against him, the first and most universally recognized requirement of due process." Smith v. O'Grady, 312 U.S. 329, 334 (1941), quoted in Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S., at 645 . In Henderson v. Morgan, we went on to make the following observations:
[ Footnote 2 ] Under the Ohio statute, the death sentence could be imposed only for the crime of aggravated murder, Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2929.03 (1975). Even as to aggravated murder, the prosecution was required separately to allege a specification and prove beyond a reasonable doubt the aggravating circumstance contained in the specification, 2929.03(C). If the jury found the defendant guilty of both aggravated murder and the specification, then the trial judge was required to hold a sentencing hearing where the defendant could show mitigating circumstances, 2929.03(D) and 2929.04. If no mitigating circumstances were found, the judge was required to impose the death sentence; a mandatory life sentence applied if mitigating circumstances were shown.
[ Footnote 3 ] The likelihood that the state trial court would have reached such a conclusion is not diminished by the facts before us. The state courts found that respondent was represented by two lawyers who were competent and capable, and the record suggests that one of the two was a nationally respected public defender; either of them might well have informed respondent of the charges contained in the indictment against him. Moreover, respondent appeared in several court proceedings in connection with his attack on Dorothy Maxwell, at any one of which the indictment could have been read to him.
[ Footnote 4 ] The method by which court records from one State are to be authenticated and proved in the courts of a second State, the weight to be given those records, and the extent to which they may be impeached by later oral testimony, are all matters generally left to the laws of the States. A State "is free to regulate the procedure of its courts in accordance with its own conception of policy and fairness unless in so doing it offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental." Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105 (1934).
[ Footnote 5 ] The Sixth Circuit sought to distinguish Henderson on several grounds, none of which withstands analysis. First, it relied on "Lonberger's testimony that his lawyers did not discuss the charge of `attempt' with him." This, however, requires rejection of the state courts' necessary conclusions as to Lonberger's testimony, which the federal habeas court was unjustified in doing. Supra, at 433-434. In addition, the Court of Appeals [459 U.S. 422, 437] thought that the fact that respondent had changed lawyers following the return of the grand jury indictment somehow made it less likely that the presumption would operate. The mere fact of a change in representation, if it has any probative value, would suggest to us that it was even more likely than usual that one of the two lawyers informed respondent of the contents of the indictment. The Court of Appeals also relied on what it thought was a vague description of the attempt-to-kill offense in the indictment and the sentencing proceedings. We cannot agree with the Court of Appeals' apparent implication that the indictment failed to provide respondent's counsel with sufficient information to enable them to describe to him the charges he faced: indeed, counsel stipulated that the indictment was "sufficient in law and fact" to sustain the charges against respondent. Finally, the Court of Appeals thought it "questionable whether [the Henderson presumption] is proper in a case . . . in which a prior conviction forms an essential element of a later crime." Whatever may be the case otherwise, there is surely no obstacle to use of the presumption in a case such as this, when the defendant is challenging a conviction which does not have a prior conviction as an element.
[ Footnote 6 ] In Spencer, which we reaffirm, the Court upheld a conviction despite the introduction at the guilt-determination stage of trial of a defendant's prior conviction for purposes of sentence enhancement. Central to our decision was the fact that the Due Process Clause does not permit the federal courts to engage in a finely tuned review of the wisdom of state evidentiary rules: "It has never been thought that [decisions under the Due Process Clause] establish this Court as a rule-making organ for the promulgation of state rules of criminal procedure." 385 U.S., at 564 . Applying these principles, we observed that the Texas procedural rules permitting introduction of the defendant's prior conviction did not pose a sufficient danger of unfairness to the defendant to offend the Due Process Clause, in part because such evidence was accompanied by instructions limiting the jury's use of the conviction to sentence enhancement. This analysis remains persuasive; as recognized in Parker v. Randolph, 442 U.S. 62, 73 (1979) (REHNQUIST, J.), the "crucial assumption" underlying the system of trial by jury "is that juries will follow the instructions given them by the trial judge. Were this not so, it would be pointless for a trial court to instruct a jury, and even more pointless for an appellate court to reverse a criminal conviction because the jury was improperly instructed." Cf. Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510 (1979). Spencer also observed that in cases where documentary evidence is used to prove the prior crime, the evidence seldom, if ever, will be so inflammatory or "devastating," Parker v. Randolph, supra, at 74-75, that the jury will be unable to follow its instructions. See, e. g., Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968). And, of course, if the jury considers a defendant's prior conviction only for purposes of sentence enhancement no questions of fairness arise.
JUSTICE STEVENS' dissent appears to rest on a view that the common law regarded the admission of prior convictions as grossly unfair and subject to some sort of blanket prohibition. In fact, the common law was far more ambivalent. See, e. g., Stone, Exclusion of Similar Fact Evidence: [459 U.S. 422, 439]
America, 51 Harv. L. Rev. 988 (1938). Alongside the general principle that prior convictions are inadmissible, despite their relevance to guilt, 1 J. Wigmore, Evidence 194 (3d ed. 1940), the common law developed broad, vaguely defined exceptions - such as proof of intent, identity, malice, motive, and plan - whose application is left largely to the discretion of the trial judge, see Spencer v. Texas, 385 U.S., at 560 -561. In short, the common law, like our decision in Spencer, implicitly recognized that any unfairness resulting from admitting prior convictions was more often than not balanced by its probative value and permitted the prosecution to introduce such evidence without demanding any particularly strong justification.
Here, as in Spencer, the trial judge gave a careful and sound instruction requiring the jury to consider respondent's prior conviction only for purposes of the specification. The extent to which the jury can and does consider limiting instructions, or for that matter any instructions, has been fully considered in cases such as Spencer, supra, Bruton, supra, Parker, supra, and Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109 (1967). The matter was put to rest for cases such as this by our decision in Spencer, supra, in which the Court quoted the remark of Justice Cardozo in Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S., at 105 , that a state rule of law "does not run foul of the Fourteenth Amendment because another method may seem to our thinking to be fairer or wiser or to give a surer promise of protection to the prisoner at the bar."
Remarking on the state of the law of evidence with respect to reputation in criminal cases, the Court in Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469, 486 (1948), said:
JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, dissenting.
I join JUSTICE STEVENS' dissent. I write separately only to emphasize that more is subject to question in the Court's [459 U.S. 422, 440] opinion than its penultimate sentence. See ante, at 438, and n. 6.
The bulk of the Court's opinion is devoted not to defending Spencer v. Texas, 385 U.S. 554 (1967), but rather to establishing that this case is not governed on all fours by Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109 (1967). Burgett held, notwithstanding Spencer, that it was inherently prejudicial to admit an unconstitutional, uncounseled prior conviction against a defendant at a trial on a new offense, regardless of the purpose for which it had been introduced or of any limiting instructions given to the jury. 389 U.S., at 115 . 1
The proceedings below concerned themselves exclusively with the question whether respondent's 1972 conviction for attempted murder in Illinois was the type of conviction which, under Burgett, could not have been admitted against him in the later Ohio trial for any purpose, regardless of the curative instructions or procedural protections Ohio might [459 U.S. 422, 441] have adopted. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted respondent's habeas petition solely on the ground that the Illinois conviction admitted in evidence at his Ohio trial had been obtained unconstitutionally, because respondent had entered a guilty plea without notice that he was pleading guilty to an attempted murder charge as well as an aggravated battery charge. A defendant's failure to receive notice of the charge to which he pleads guilty renders his plea invalid and a conviction based upon it unconstitutional. See Henderson v. Morgan, 426 U.S. 637 (1976); Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969). The conviction is also completely unreliable, since it rests entirely on a guilty plea that cannot be taken as an admission that the defendant indeed committed the elements of the offense. So if the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was right about respondent's failure to receive notice in Illinois, the conviction should not have been admitted into evidence in Ohio, his Ohio conviction was invalid under Burgett, and the court properly granted his habeas corpus petition.
Both JUSTICE REHNQUIST's opinion for the Court, ante, at 426-430, and JUSTICE STEVENS' dissent, post, at 457, show why the factual correctness of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit's conclusion as to notice is a close question. The records of respondent's guilty plea and conviction in Illinois leave the matter in considerable doubt. The formal statement of conviction preserved in Illinois records states only that respondent was found guilty of "AGGRAVATED BATTERY, ETC." App. 5. The transcript of respondent's guilty plea proceedings shows that the trial judge asked him to admit, "that you did on August 25, 1968, commit the offense of aggravated battery on one Dorothy Maxwell, and that you did on the same date attempt on Dorothy Maxwell, with a knife," and he answered, "Yes, sir." Id., at 8. The judge also mentioned the possible sentence for "attempt." Id., at 9. In the absence of more, neither of these records [459 U.S. 422, 442] clearly establishes that respondent had notice that he was pleading guilty to attempted murder as well as aggravated battery. On the other hand, respondent was represented by competent counsel in Illinois, and he was arraigned on an indictment that clearly charged him with attempted murder.
The Court resolves this tension on the basis of rules of law derived from Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539 (1981), and on dictum in Henderson v. Morgan, supra. Henderson states that in cases such as this, where the record does not clearly show that the defendant received notice, "it may be appropriate to presume that in most cases defense counsel routinely explain the nature of the offense in sufficient detail to give the accused notice of what he is being asked to admit." Id., at 647. The Court thus holds:
Testifying at a pretrial hearing in Ohio, respondent claimed that he was told of a plea bargain whereby he would plead guilty only to aggravated battery and be sentenced accordingly. He testified that his Illinois lawyer told him "[t]hat he had talked it over with the State's attorney and that again we would go out and the judge would say a lot of things but it was just for the record's sake and that we was copping out to aggravated battery from two to four, that was the agreement." App. 24; cf. id., at 84-85. It is hard to judge respondent's credibility on a cold record, but this statement is hardly incredible on its face. The State made no effort to impeach it, unlike respondent's claim that he was never told he had been charged with attempted murder, see id., at 27-75, and the Ohio Court of Appeals did not address it, see App. to Pet. for Cert. A-40 - A-42; ante, at 429-430. Apart from the Illinois trial judge's ambiguous reference to "attempt . . . with a knife," nothing at respondent's guilty plea proceeding would have informed him that he was doing more than going forward with the deal that had been proposed to him. He was sentenced to two to four years in prison - two years is the minimum sentence for aggravated battery 3 - and his conviction [459 U.S. 422, 444] statement specified no crime but "AGGRAVATED BATTERY."
More importantly, respondent's understanding that he was pleading guilty only to aggravated battery was perfectly reasonable, despite the judge's mention of "attempt." Since at least 1958, Illinois has had a state statutory and constitutional rule forbidding convictions - not merely punishments - for two offenses based on a single act. See People v. King, 66 Ill. 2d 551, 560-566, 363 N. E. 2d 838, 842-843 (1977) (discussing development of Illinois law); Illinois Criminal Code of 1961, 1-7(m) (current version at Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, § 1005-8-4(a) (1979)). This rule has been applied several times to vacate one conviction when a defendant, in a single trial, has been convicted of both aggravated battery and attempted murder resulting from the same act. 4 E. g., People ex rel. Walker v. Pate, 53 Ill. 2d 485, 292 N. E. 2d 387 (1973); People v. Carter, 21 Ill. App. 3d 207, 315 N. E. 2d 47 (1974); People v. Peery, 81 Ill. App. 2d 372, 377, 225 N. E. 2d 730, 732 (1967).
Under Illinois law, therefore, respondent could not have been convicted of both "aggravated battery" and "etc." if the "etc." referred to the attempted murder of Dorothy Maxwell. Upon hearing the reference to "attempt . . . with a knife," respondent would have been warranted in thinking that the [459 U.S. 422, 445] judge was indulging in a lawyer's well-known penchant for redundancy.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the transcript of respondent's Illinois guilty plea was inadequate to show that he was aware that he was pleading guilty to attempted murder as well as aggravated battery. The Ohio Court of Appeals reached a different conclusion about the same transcript. But in finding that respondent had made a knowing and intelligent plea, the Ohio court relied completely on the facts that respondent answered "Yes" to the question described above, that he stated that he understood he was waiving his right to trial, and that his lawyers stipulated that there were sufficient facts to prove the charges in the indictment. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-42; see ante, at 429-430. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit's result is perfectly consistent with Sumner's "presumption of correctness," see 449 U.S., at 550 -551, because the Ohio Court of Appeals' findings, read in light of Illinois law or of respondent's unimpeached testimony in the Ohio trial court, fall short of establishing that respondent knew that he was pleading guilty to attempted murder.
This Court now slips a new rationale beneath the flawed determination of the Ohio court. It holds that respondent's guilty plea must have been valid if at some point, under Henderson, it is likely that he learned of all the charges against him. 5 Like the Ohio court, however, this Court fails to explain its leap from notice of the charges to notice of which charges were included in the guilty plea. It makes no sense whatsoever to maintain that Henderson required the Court [459 U.S. 422, 446] of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to accept an inference that respondent's counsel had explained all the charges against him, but at the same time to ignore the likelihood that his lawyer also told him that he could not be convicted of both aggravated battery and attempted murder. As a factual matter, respondent's lawyer may or may not have explained the state conviction rule to him. But the Court is left with a rule of law that makes sense only if respondent was ignorant of settled state law, for only then would the trial judge's brief reference to "attempt" seem anything but absurd.
A simple, but unanswerable question of fact and a simple question of law are central to this case. Did respondent have actual knowledge that he was pleading guilty to attempted murder as well as aggravated battery in 1972? At this point, more than 10 years later and in the face of an ambiguous record, no factfinder could be completely certain that a particular answer is correct. So the crucial question becomes what makes an ambiguous record sufficient to support a state court's finding that a plea was knowing, voluntary, and intelligent. Under Henderson, mere absence of a recitation of all the charges at a guilty plea hearing may not be enough to render a plea unconstitutional, but in this case respondent had good reason to believe he was pleading guilty only to aggravated battery.
By dismissing part of the record, failing to confront the difference between notice of charges and notice of the charges to which one is pleading guilty, and disregarding the law of Illinois, the Court manages to fit this case within a rule of law that permits it to reverse the judgment below. And to what end this Procrustean effort? To uphold the great principle that the unique record before us was not so ambiguous as to forbid an inference that at some point respondent may have known what the charges against him were? To reaffirm that a conviction obtained under such circumstances is not so fundamentally [459 U.S. 422, 447] unsound as to bar a zealous prosecutor from introducing it into evidence in some later prosecution, for (as JUSTICE STEVENS and JUSTICE BLACKMUN show) no good reason at all? To relieve Ohio of the burden of a single retrial? I question that this case was "certworthy." The game hardly seems worth the candle.
[ Footnote 1 ] Whether or not Spencer may still be read as broadly as it was written, the two cases are reconcilable. Spencer took a balancing approach to interpreting the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, and held only that the risk of prejudice alone from admitting a valid prior conviction - provided the jury was given proper limiting instructions - did not necessarily outweigh the legitimate benefits the State might derive from the procedures that required admitting the conviction. See 385 U.S., at 562 -563. Spencer expressly distinguished situations in which admission of the prior conviction, in addition to exposing the defendant to a risk of prejudice, might compromise a specific federal right. Id., at 564-565. Burgett recognized that admitting unconstitutional prior convictions did compromise vital federal rights. Furthermore, the conviction admitted into evidence in Burgett was not merely unconstitutional, it was also unreliable evidence that the defendant had in fact committed the prior offense, because the defendant had not had the benefit of the advice of counsel. These additional elements of unconstitutionality and unreliability tip the delicate balance struck by Spencer. Thus, Burgett unquestionably states good law: where a defendant's prior conviction is unconstitutional or unreliable, it may not be introduced in evidence against that defendant for any purpose.
[ Footnote 2 ] In the absence of proof to the contrary, Henderson does support a presumption that respondent's Illinois counsel informed him at some point of the charges against him. In this case, however, respondent submitted proof to the contrary - he testified at length that he had never been told, by his lawyer or by the court, that he was being charged with attempted murder. See App. 24-25, 85-94 (transcript of hearing before Ohio trial court). Under the normal rule applying in federal courts, a judge-made "presumption" does no more than require the opposing party to go forward [459 U.S. 422, 443] with evidence to rebut or meet it. See Fed. Rule Evid. 301; H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1597, pp. 5-6 (1974). Even if the State had rebutted respondent's testimony - and it did not - respondent's showing clearly sufficed to meet any presumption created by Henderson. At most, then, Henderson's effect on this case was to create a permissible inference that respondent had been informed of the charges against him.
[ Footnote 3 ] See Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, §§ 12-4(e), 1005-8-1(6) (1979). At the time respondent was sentenced in Illinois, it was not clear whether there was any minimum sentence for attempted murder. See People v. Moore, 69 Ill. 2d 520, 372 N. E. 2d 666 (1978); People v. Jones, 55 Ill. App. 3d 446, [459 U.S. 422, 448] 455, 370 N. E. 2d 1142, 1149 (1977). Since then the Illinois Legislature has imposed a 6-year minimum. See Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, §§ 8-4(c)(1), 1005-8-1-(3) (1979).
[ Footnote 4 ] The Illinois indictment establishes that respondent's aggravated battery charge rested on precisely the same facts as his attempted murder charge:
[ Footnote 5 ] This holding is obviously limited by Henderson itself, which makes clear that a habeas petitioner is free to introduce evidence rebutting the inference the Court draws in this case, and courts are free to believe that evidence. See 426 U.S., at 647 . Furthermore, if there is enough evidence in the record indicating that the Henderson inference cannot be drawn, or that even if it can be drawn other factors indicate that the plea may not have been made with knowledge, then any state court's reliance on Henderson would not be fairly supported by the record.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, dissenting.
I join JUSTICE STEVENS' dissenting opinion, for I, too, would affirm the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. It is enough for me in this case to note the utter absence of a legitimate state interest once the prosecution refused to accept respondent's proffered stipulation. That refusal revealed that the prosecution believed the indictment had prejudicial value, and it rendered nonexistent any otherwise legitimate interest the State might have had in introducing the indictment.
JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN, JUSTICE MARSHALL, and JUSTICE BLACKMUN join, dissenting.
Criminal prosecution involves two determinations: whether the defendant is guilty or innocent, and what the appropriate punishment should be if he is guilty. In most cases, these determinations are made in two stages. At the first stage, strict rules of procedure govern the order in which evidence is offered, the quality of the evidence that may be admitted, and the burden of proof that is required to establish the defendant's guilt. At the second stage, however, the rules are relaxed; a wide range of evidence concerning the defendant's character may be received by the sentencing authority even though it is entirely extraneous to the particular offense that has just been proved.
This case involves the unfairness that may result from an attempt to merge the two stages. At issue is a highly prejudicial item of evidence: an Illinois indictment charging that in 1968 the respondent had "intentionally and knowingly attempted [459 U.S. 422, 448] to kill Dorothy Maxwell by cutting Dorothy Maxwell with a knife without lawful justification." Everyone agrees that this evidence could not be used to prove the respondent's guilt in this case, which concerned a 1975 murder in Ohio. 1 On the other hand, if the respondent were found guilty of the Ohio murder, the evidence was certainly relevant to whether [459 U.S. 422, 449] he should be given the death penalty. 2 The reason this case is before us today is that the Ohio trial court allowed the prosecutor to present the evidence to the jury before it decided whether the respondent was guilty of the 1975 crime.
The Court finds no constitutional objection to this procedure because it is satisfied that the evidence could legitimately be used in determining the appropriate penalty, and because the jury was instructed not to consider the evidence as probative of the respondent's guilt. In my opinion the constitutional question is more difficult than the Court acknowledges. It requires, I believe, a re-examination of this Court's decision in Spencer v. Texas, 385 U.S. 554 (1967), as well as more attention to the prosecutorial tactics disclosed by this record.
The structure for constitutional analysis in this area was established in 1967, when this Court twice considered the constitutionality of convictions under the Texas recidivist statute. Under the Texas procedure, the prosecutor was allowed to offer evidence of the defendant's guilt and evidence of his prior criminal record in a single proceeding, so long as the jury was instructed that the defendant's past convictions were not to be taken into account in assessing his guilt or innocence under the current indictment.
In Spencer v. Texas, a bare majority of the Court concluded that such a procedure did not "fall below the minimum level the Fourteenth Amendment will tolerate." Id., at 569 (Stewart, J., concurring). The Court acknowledged [459 U.S. 422, 450] that prior-crimes evidence "is generally recognized to have potentiality for prejudice." Id., at 560. Nevertheless, it held that this potentiality did not distinguish recidivist trials from other criminal trials in which prior-crime evidence was admissible.
The majority noted that, under the rule of Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U.S. 232 (1957), a hearsay statement that was inadmissible against a defendant could nevertheless be introduced into evidence when the defendant was being tried jointly with the declarant, provided that the jury was instructed not to consider the statement in evaluating the defendant's guilt. The Court observed that under Delli Paoli "all joint trials, whether of several codefendants or of one defendant charged with multiple offenses, furnish inherent opportunities for unfairness when evidence submitted as to one crime (on which there may be an acquittal) may influence the jury as to a totally different charge." 385 U.S., at 562 . This unfairness was deemed acceptable for two reasons:
Two cases decided within 18 months of Spencer called its analytic structure into question. Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109 (1967), also involved a conviction under the Texas [459 U.S. 422, 451] recidivist statute in which the jury had been instructed "not to consider the prior offenses for any purpose whatsoever in arriving at the verdict." Id., at 113 (footnote omitted). In Burgett, the record did not affirmatively show that the petitioner had been represented by counsel at his earlier trial. Over the dissent of three Members of the Spencer majority, 3 the Court reversed the conviction. The Court reasoned that the earlier conviction was "presumptively void," that the admission of such a conviction was "inherently prejudicial and we are unable to say that the instructions to disregard it made the constitutional error `harmless beyond a reasonable doubt' within the meaning of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 ." 389 U.S., at 115 . In a footnote the Court unequivocally rejected the notion that a jury could be expected to follow instructions to disregard prejudicial evidence of this character. The Court stated:
The opinions in Burgett and Bruton demolished one of the two pillars that had supported the holding in Spencer. After Burgett and Bruton, it was plainly no longer appropriate to presume that a jury will ignore prejudicial evidence presented to it, even if the court tells it to do so. Moreover, given Spencer's suggestion that the State's interest in holding a one-stage sentence enhancement proceeding may be "less cogent" than the state interest promoted in Delli Paoli, the other pillar was shaky at best. The case before the Court today requires us to consider what is left of that other pillar. More concretely, the question before us is whether the unfair prejudice that Ohio imposed on the respondent is justified by any valid state interest in prosecuting him in the manner it chose to employ.
Under Ohio law, a person convicted of murder may not be sentenced to death unless (a) the murder was "aggravated," Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2929.03 (1975), (b) a "specification" is included in the indictment, 2929.04(A), and (c) the "specification" is proved beyond a reasonable doubt, ibid. In this [459 U.S. 422, 454] case the murder was alleged to have been "aggravated" because it was committed during a rape. And the indictment included, by way of "specification," an allegation that the respondent had previously been convicted of attempted murder in Illinois.
Before trial, the respondent moved to dismiss the specification, citing Burgett and arguing that the prior conviction was void because it had been based on an involuntary guilty plea. At a hearing on that motion, the State produced the Illinois indictment, the transcript of the Illinois proceedings, and the Illinois "conviction statement." It argued that the respondent must have known he was pleading guilty to attempted murder, even though the indictment was never read to him, the words "attempted murder" were never mentioned at the hearing, he was never told that he was pleading guilty to everything alleged in the indictment, he was sentenced to only two to four years of imprisonment, and the conviction statement showed only a conviction for "AGGRAVATED BATTERY, ETC." The Ohio trial judge found that the respondent had knowingly and voluntarily pleaded guilty to attempted murder.
At trial, the prosecutor sought to introduce the conviction statement and the indictment to prove the specification. The respondent moved for a bifurcated trial in order to prevent the jury from receiving this evidence until after guilt had been established. He argued that since the prior indictment alleged an attack on a woman with a knife, it would be especially prejudicial in this case, because he was again charged with assaulting a female with a knife. The trial judge agreed that it would be wrong to consider the evidence regarding the earlier conviction for the purpose of establishing the current offense, and he so instructed the jury. 7 Nevertheless, he refused to bifurcate the proceeding. [459 U.S. 422, 455]
Respondent then offered to stipulate that the Illinois conviction was for attempted murder, arguing that this would at least eliminate any need to introduce the Illinois indictment. Both the prosecutor and the trial judge rejected that offer. Instead, the jury was given a copy of the Illinois indictment reciting the details of the Illinois charge as well as the Illinois conviction statement. The jury found respondent guilty of aggravated murder and found the specification to have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt; the trial judge sentenced him to death.
The Ohio Court of Appeals reversed the aggravated murder conviction on the ground that the State had failed to prove rape, or even intercourse with the respondent, beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the court rejected the argument that the jury's finding that the respondent was guilty of murder had been unfairly contaminated by its receipt of the Illinois indictment. On remand, the trial court imposed a sentence of 15 years to life.
In retrospect, it is quite obvious that the highly prejudicial Illinois indictment should never have been admitted into evidence for any purpose at all. The indictment was relevant only to the specification, the specification was relevant only if the murder was aggravated, and the State failed to produce enough evidence of aggravation even to justify sending the charge to the jury.
Even if there had been enough evidence of aggravation to reach the jury, there was no legitimate reason for the State to give the Illinois indictment to the jury until after it had found an aggravated murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Sixteen years ago, the Spencer Court upheld such a procedure by stressing that state procedures varied widely and [459 U.S. 422, 456] that experimentation was still in progress. 385 U.S., at 566 . Those facts are not true today. Bifurcated proceedings are now the rule in capital cases throughout the Nation. 8 It is [459 U.S. 422, 457] simply no longer tenable to say that the difficulties of administering a bifurcated trial are sufficient to justify a State's use of a prejudicial one-stage system. Indeed, the tactics employed in this case dramatically unmask the true prosecutorial interest in preserving a one-stage procedure - to enhance the likelihood that the jury will convict. 9 Because the only premises that even arguably support the holding in Spencer are no longer valid and plainly are not implicated in this case, I would not permit that decision to dictate the result in this case.
Even under the holding in Spencer, the Court should take note of the fact that the prejudice associated with a one-stage procedure increases whenever the written record of the earlier proceeding is not sufficient on its face to foreclose a challenge to the validity of the prior conviction. Such a challenge often requires a discussion of the details of a prior offense or of an unproved charge, thereby increasing the danger that the jury may draw the inference that has been universally recognized as impermissible throughout our history. See n. 1, supra. I would adopt a simple rule that a one-stage enhancement procedure is constitutionally intolerable whenever the documentary evidence of the prior conviction fails to establish its validity and its relevance beyond debate. Cf. Spencer, 385 U.S., at 562 ("The evidence itself is usually, and in recidivist cases almost always, of a documentary kind, and in the cases before us there is no claim that its presentation was in any way inflammatory"). The documentary evidence in this case plainly failed to satisfy that test. [459 U.S. 422, 458]
Even if one believed that Ohio had a legitimate interest in refusing to bifurcate these proceedings, it insults our intelligence when it claims that it had a legitimate interest in sending the Illinois indictment to the jury. The State was allegedly trying to show, for sentence enhancement purposes, that respondent had been convicted of attempted murder in Illinois. The conviction statement showed that he had been convicted of "AGGRAVATED BATTERY, ETC." After failing in his efforts to get the proceeding bifurcated, the respondent offered to stipulate that the "ETC." referred to attempted murder. Yet the State refused to accept this stipulation. The prosecutor instead insisted on sending the indictment to the jury. The indictment was less probative of the specification than a stipulation would have been, since the conviction statement did not reflect a conviction for each of the four charges listed in the indictment, and the State has never suggested that it did. And the indictment was more prejudicial than a stipulation would have been, since it recited the details of the Illinois charge. The prosecutor's naked desire to inject prejudice into the record had the effect of complicating and prolonging the proceedings in this case 10 [459 U.S. 422, 459] and deprived the respondent of his constitutional right to a fair trial.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
[ Footnote 1 ] The common law has long deemed it unfair to argue that, because a person has committed a crime in the past, he is more likely to have committed a similar, more recent crime. See, e. g., People v. White, 14 Wend. 111, 113-114 (N. Y. Sup. Ct. 1835) (in prosecution for possession of counterfeit money, improper to introduce evidence of former conviction); United States v. Burr, 25 Fed. Cas. 187, 198 (No. 14,694) (CC Va. 1807) (Marshall, C. J.) (in prosecution for providing support to a treasonous military expedition in Virginia, improper to introduce evidence that the accused had provided the means for a treasonous military expedition in Kentucky); King v. Doaks, Quincy's Mass. Reports 90 (Mass. Sup. Ct. 1763) (in prosecution for keeping a bawdy house, improper to introduce evidence of acts of lasciviousness performed before the defendant became mistress of the house); Hampden's Trial, 9 How. St. Tr. 1053, 1103 (Eng. 1684) ("a person was indicted of forgery, we would not let them give evidence of any other forgeries but that for which he was indicted").
The objection to such evidence is not that the proposed inference is illogical. The objection is rather that the inference is so attractive that it will overwhelm the factfinder and create an unwarranted presumption of guilt. As Professor Wigmore explained:
[ Footnote 2 ] Under Ohio law, the death penalty could not be imposed unless the respondent had been convicted of "an offense of which the gist was the purposeful killing or attempt to kill another." Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2929.04(A)(5) (1975). An Illinois "conviction statement" shows that the respondent pleaded guilty in 1972 to "aggravated battery, etc." The prosecutor asserted that in fact the respondent had pleaded guilty to attempted murder. Although the conviction statement and indictment were clearly not sufficient, standing alone, to prove that assertion beyond a reasonable doubt, they were at least relevant to the inquiry.
[ Footnote 3 ] Justice Harlan, who had authored the Court's opinion in Spencer, dissented and was joined by Justice Black and JUSTICE WHITE. See 389 U.S., at 120 .
[ Footnote 4 ] Compare Chief Justice Warren's observations, dissenting in part in Spencer:
[ Footnote 5 ] JUSTICE WHITE'S dissenting opinion was joined by Justice Harlan.
[ Footnote 6 ] The Court could also have relied on another opinion written by Justice Jackson only three weeks before the Krulewitch case was argued. In Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469 (1948), a prosecutor had introduced the defendant's prior conviction to rebut testimony that he had a reputation for being a law-abiding citizen. After first discussing the general rule that such evidence is not admissible, see n. 1, supra, the Court declared: "The price a defendant must pay for attempting to prove his good name is to throw open the entire subject which the law has kept closed for his benefit and to make himself vulnerable where the law otherwise shields him." 335 U.S., at 479 . Presaging both the Court's later holding in Bruton and also identifying the common element in Bruton and Burgett, Justice Jackson wrote:
[ Footnote 7 ] The judge's instructions stated, in part:
[ Footnote 8 ] Ohio's laws are unique in this country.
The District of Columbia and 13 States (Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) have no capital punishment statutes at all.
Three States have capital punishment statutes limited to certain precise categories of "aggravated" murder, where the existence of prior convictions is not an aggravating circumstance. N. Y. Penal Law 125.27(1) (a)(iii) (McKinney 1975) (see People v. Davis, 43 N. Y. 2d 17, and n. 3, 371 N. E. 2d 456, and n. 3 (1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 998 and 438 U.S. 914 (1978)); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 13, 2303(c) (Supp. 1982); Wash. Rev. Code 10.95.020 (1981). It is significant that under the "habitual criminal" statutes in all three States, where prior convictions are in effect "aggravating circumstances," bifurcated proceedings are used. See N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law 400.20, 400.21 (McKinney Supp. 1982); State v. Angelucci, 137 Vt. 272, 405 A. 2d 33 (1979); State v. Gear, 30 Wash. App. 307, 633 P.2d 930 (1981).
Thirty-three States have capital punishment statutes with bifurcated proceedings so that evidence of aggravating circumstances is not introduced until after the jury has determined guilt or innocence. Ala. Code 13A-5-45 (Supp. 1982); Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. 13-703B (Supp. 1982); Ark. Stat. Ann. 41-1301 (1977); Cal. Penal Code Ann. 190.1 (West Supp. 1982); Colo. Rev. Stat. 16-11-103, 18-1-105(4) (1978 and Supp. 1982); Conn. Gen. Stat. 53a-46a (Supp. 1982); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 11, 4209(b) (1979); Fla. Stat. 921.141 (Supp. 1982); Ga. Code Ann. 17-10-31 (1982); Idaho Code 19-2515 (1979); Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 38, § 9-1(d) (1979); Ind. Code 35-50-2-9(d) (1979); Ky. Rev. Stat. 532.025 (Supp. 1982); La. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 905 (West Supp. 1982); Md. Ann. Code, Art. 27, 413(a) (1982); Miss. Code Ann. 99-19-101 (Supp. 1982); Mo. Rev. Stat. 565.006 (Supp. 1982); Mont. Code Ann. 46-18-301 (1981); Neb. Rev. Stat. 29-2520 (1979); Nev. Rev. Stat. 175.552 (1981); N. H. Rev. Stat. Ann. 630:5 (Supp. 1981); N. J. Stat. Ann. 2C:11-3.c (West 1982); 1982 N. J. Laws, ch. 111; N. M. Stat. Ann. 31-18-14(A) (1981); N.C. Gen. Stat. 15A-2000 (Supp. 1981); Okla. Stat., Tit. 21, 701.10 (Supp. 1982); 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. 9711 (Supp. 1982); S. C. Code 16-3-20 (1982); S. D. Comp. Laws Ann. 23A-27A-2 (1979); Tenn. Code Ann. 39-2404 (Supp. 1981); Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.071 (Vernon 1981); Utah Code Ann. 76-3-207 (1978); Va. Code 19.2-264.4 (Supp. 1982); Wyo. Stat. 6-4-101, 6-4-102 (1977). [459 U.S. 422, 457]
Only Ohio considers prior convictions as aggravating circumstances without a fully bifurcated proceeding. Today, Ohio's system is half bifurcated: guilt and aggravating circumstances are considered together in one phase, mitigating circumstances in a second. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2929.03 (1982).
[ Footnote 9 ] The stark contrast between the gratuitous use of prejudicial evidence over the defendant's objection in this case and the justification for the prosecutor's rebuttal when the defendant opened up the subject in Michelson, see n. 6, supra, highlights this conclusion.
[ Footnote 10 ] After the Ohio Court of Appeals remanded to the state trial court for resentencing in 1977, both the State and the respondent sought review in the Ohio Supreme Court, which was denied. After resentencing, the respondent sought federal habeas corpus relief in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. That court denied relief in an unpublished opinion and order. He appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which reversed and ordered that the writ issue. Lonberger v. Jago, 635 F.2d 1189 (1980). The State sought rehearing in the Court of Appeals, which was denied. This Court granted certiorari, 451 U.S. 902 (1981), vacating the judgment of the Sixth Circuit and remanding for further consideration in light of Summer v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539 (1981). The Sixth Circuit reinstated its prior judgment. Lonberger v. Jago, 651 F.2d 447 (1981). The State again sought certiorari, which we again granted. 454 U.S. 1141 (1982). Today, almost six years after the Ohio Court of Appeals held that the issue of aggravated murder should never even have gone to the jury, litigation of this issue draws to a close. [459 U.S. 422, 460]
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Citation: 459 U.S. 422
Docket No: No. 81-420
Argued: October 05, 1982
Decided: February 22, 1983
Court: United States Supreme Court
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text:
Every trip to Graceland now includes a visit to the new Elvis the Entertainer Career Museum. Same thing for Presley Motors Automobile Museum. Everybody takes in those two during a trip to Graceland.
Did you know that hundreds of the items displayed in these venues were featured in the Elvis-A-Rama Museum in Las Vegas fifteen years ago?
Back in 2005, I did an ElvisBlog article on Elvis-A-Rama. This was two years before I started adding photos to the posts, so it was all text. Like this information I found on the internet:
Named one of the "Top 3 Attractions" in Las Vegas by The Travel Channel
Voted "The Best Museum" in the city by the Las Vegas Review Journal
Elvis-A-Rama has been on the cover of USA Today, People, and Forbes magazines
It contained over 2000 artifacts valued at over $6 million (in 2005 dollars)
From this you can see that Elvis-A-Rama was a large, high-quality exhibit not to be missed by Elvis fans.
Here are the key exhibits that were noted in the 2005 research I did.
Elvis' 8-passenger 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood limo
The "Peacock" and "Cisco Kid" jumpsuits
Elvis' 1962 Glastron powerboat
A pair of blue suede shoes autographed by Elvis and valued at $1 million
The famous gold lame' suit
A 1975 purple Lincoln Mark IV
Every commercially released 45, EP and LP ever recorded by Elvis
In addition, there were guitars, piano, handwritten lyrics, personal clothes, outfits from the movies, furniture, army stuff, various papers, and lots more.
I got to see Elvis-A-Rama in April 2006. And that was good timing, because it was closing for good in a couple of months. Elvis-A-Rama had been purchased by Elvis Presley Enterprises the preceding November… and they were moving out all the stuff.
So, I kind of slid in under the wire and got to see it all. I spent half a day in there. Read every word on the plaques and other signage. Sat through a show by an ETA in a little theater. Browsed the gift shop thoroughly.
I loved my lucky visit to Elvis-A-Rama.
I like their tag line: Experience the King as if He Never Left the Building.
At first I didn't think "Elvis-A-Rama" was a very good name, sounding kind of schlocky. Then I found out it was originally the name of the largest display — a magnificent 10-foot tall, 85-foot long mural that celebrated Elvis' life and career.
It incorporated Elvis' music, synchronized to clips of his television appearances, scenes from his movies, and concert footage. It also contained a signature board with thousands of personal notes to Elvis, many of them by famous celebrities.
The Elvis-A-Rama mural had been created in 1979 by songwriter Mitchell Torok (If you're old like me, you may remember his 1959 hit "Caribbean"), and it was on display for 18 years, first in Nashville, and then Branson, before being sold and moved to Las Vegas.
But there was something else factoring into that sale. The mural had a solid trademark for a name that had Elvis in it. That meant its new owner could use it as the name for his new Las Vegas museum, and he did. Elvis-a-Rama was now the whole show, not just the mural.
More in Part 2.
I have never been to the Elvis the Entertainer Career Museum. But some of you readers have. Please tell me in Comments if there is a 10 feet high, 85 feet long mural in there.
If not, do you think it's in safe storage, waiting to be brought out to great fanfare in a few years?
I hope so.
© 2019 Philip R Arnold, Original Elvis Blogmeister All Rights Reserved www.ElvisBlog.net
Elvis, Elvis Presley, and Graceland are registered trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
|FreeBSD Ports and Packages Installation and upgrading of ports and packages on FreeBSD.
|Thread Tools
|Display Modes
One small question about portupgrade (and yes I HAVE read the man-pages!)
So I've read manpages on portupgrade and portinstall (same program i know)
and I've been doing plenty of installs with "portinstall -P" to install packages, because I have a plenty slow machine, and I have yet to have been told any real advantages to compiling over installing packages, so I install packages
can I just run "portupgrade -aP" to install all upgrades and install them from packages when found?
How often will fresh updates be rolled into packages for my convenience? How often are things made into packages in general?
also, is running "portupgrade -aP" safe? does it run the pkgdb commands necessary to keep my system well-maintained?
is this the optimal method for updating a machine?
I have a fairly slow laptop (Sempron Mobile 3300+, 512DDR), so I do likewise.
# script /root/portupgrade_script.tonight # portupgrade -arRbP --batch -l ~/portupgrade_log.tonight ... coffee break
I do not personally *recommend* doing it that way, but it works for me and has been quite reliable; with less trouble then making packages on a faster PC to transfer over.
if a problem needing suitable user intervention occurs, you'll have to fix the pkgdb, either semi-automatically or manually. Most issues I've had with pkgdb, come from managing changed dependencies.
My Journal
Thou shalt check the array bounds of all strings (indeed, all arrays), for surely where thou typest ``foo'' someone someday shall type ``supercalifragilisticexpialidocious''.
more confused
so what SHOULD I do?
What command should i punch in?
what's the freebsd equivalent for "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade"?
I don't think there is an exact equivalent to the apt-get commands you mentioned. Keep in mind the distinction between the base system and third-party software (ports) in FreeBSD land.
There are source (rebuilding world) and binary (freebsd-update) options for upgrading the base system. There are numerous ways to upgrade your ports.
Can you explain what you're aiming to accomplish here apart from upgrading for the sake of upgrading? (Is there a certain port you need a security fix for, or the latest version of? etc.)
Kill your t.v.
I'd just like to know how, in case a (well, I really don't care about security on my desktops) but certainly FEATURES come out, and I'd like to upgrade those
and I'd like to know now, and this is mostly tinkering for the sake of tinkering, I'm trying to learn about the freebsd underpinnings of the pc-bsd installation, once i'm comfortable enough, i'm going to venture off into pure-freebsd land for my daily desktop usage
ALSO, I'm using it daily as a desktop to help me understand how to use it as a server, (package management and maintanence etc. etc.)
but yeah, how do I upgrade "for the sake of upgrading" as the freebsd community seems to frown upon?
I like being able to say my system is "fully up to date"
You install and upgrade it from the gnome2 metaport, which has all the various bits and pieces. When a new release, major or minor, comes out, you can update the metaport, and UPDATING has the details on how to do that. The minor updates are (usually ) no big deal, but the updating between major versions is. You have to do it right, or you break things.
Once that release is out, the component pieces continue to be updated. So if your computer is "fully up-to-date" you have some of these pieces that are not intended to be used unless you know what you are doing. Between minor releases this usually is not a big deal. But if you hit the boundary between the last minor release and a major upgrade, you can cause all sorts of mischief.
So it depends on what you mean by having your computer be fully up-to-date. Gnome2 can be current, but the libraries and some of the pieces may not be.
I would never, ever, recommend that someone upgrade all the ports at once. Unless you run a simple system this method is guaranteed to result in breakage that will take a long time to fix.
Instead, upgrade it in pieces. I break it roughly as X11 and video drivers, gnome2 and its pieces, and "other" including math packages, things like gimp and ImageMagick and Acroread -- in general, ports that do not really depend on a lot of other stuff. That's not clean either, but that has worked pretty well for me over the years. But keep your eye out for upgrade to things like gettext, which require every port to be upgraded.
I also think that having something that works is much better than getting the latest and greatest new features. Usually there are new bugs that are introduced too. For example, I would never recommend that a new major update of Gnome be installed unless you like hunting bugs or you REALLY need something new. Usually by .1 it has settled down enough to be pretty useful, and by the .3 (namely, just before the new version) it works really well.
2004 - 2008 ... How I upgrade ports has changed probably
!!_ weekly_ !! ''by bits and pieces". What is a suitable way here,
probably not a suitable way for 40 percent of others who use
FreeBSD 13-STABLE
I don't understand your question entirely, but I keep an eye on the major metaports I use: X11, Gnome and "the rest". When X11 has a major upgrade, I let it pass for a while until it settles down. You can keep an eye on the lists for the issues.
I have hunted down a lot of bugs in Gnome, so I often upgrade at the beta stage, and contribute bug reports. Usually I find a dozen or so. There are more early on, and by .1 the port is in decent shape.
The others are less important to me, and don't change as much.
The bottom line is that you can keep an eye on what is happening from the lists, and somewhat from what ports are not up-to-date. For gnome, there are all sorts of ports that upgrade along the way; until there is an upgrade to gnome2, well, don't upgrade any of those (unless there is a bug that bites you) until the metaport upgrade. Then decide if you want it.
Sadly, you have to know what you have installed, how those ports relate to other things you have installed, and keep an eye on what is upgraded and when. It does take some work.
You can get the hang of it after a while. But simply doing an upgrade of all ports whenever you decide to do it is just not wise. FWIW, I keep an eye on things and spend a day or two upgrading every three months or so. I go from source, but using packages is not really that different if you know that the packages have some delay in being built.
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text:
CDM750 Mobile Two-Way Radio
Price: Request Quote
Type: Discontinued Radios
Brand: Motorola Solutions
Model: CDM750
Type: Discontinued Radios
Brand: Motorola Solutions
Model: CDM750
The CDM750 mobile radio is no longer manufactured, however accessories and replacement parts may be available. Please contact your Motorola representative for additional information.
The CDM750 mobile two-way radio has streamlined its features to keep users communicating steadily and efficiently — including limited signaling capabilities and two customizable function buttons. Motorola's unique X-PAND audio enhancement and a large front-projecting speaker ensure clear, crisp sound, even in noisy environments. This practical radio gives you virtually everything you need to get the job done.
Due to the FCC Narrowbanding mandate in the United States, product specifications and brochures for Motorola Solutions two-way radio products may indicate 25 kHz/12.5 kHz analog/digital operation which may not be the standard mode of operation at the time of shipment after Jan. 1st 2013.
Switchable Channel Spacing
Migrates easily between 25-kHz and 12.5-kHz frequencies.
Two Customizable Buttons
Allow users to add favorite features.
MDC1200 Encode Signaling
Sends information via digital signals.
Selective Radio Inhibit
Remotely deactivates a lost or stolen radio.
Scan Function
Continually monitors channels for activity.
Powerful Loudspeaker
Faces front rather than on top for maximum clarity.
Power Levels: 1-25, 25-45, 40-60W
Frequency Range:
Low band: 29.7–36, 36-42, 42-50 MHz
VHF: 136–174 MHz
UHF: 403–470, 450-512 MHz
Frequency Band: Low band, VHF, UHF
Coverage Area: Programming software allows adjustable power output for varying coverage
Available Option Board: Yes
Dimensions (H x W x D): 2.3 x 6.93 x 7.44 in.
Weight: 3.5 lbs.
Remote Mountable Control Head: Yes
Channels: 4
Call Tones: None
Busy Channel Lockout: Yes
X-Pand Voice Compression and Low Level Expansion: Yes
Time Out Timer: Yes
Scan: Nuisance channel delete
Channel Spacing: 12.5, 25
Programmable Buttons: Yes
System Type: Conventional
Mil Spec: 810 C, 810 D, 810 E
Standard Package: Standard Compact microphone, mounting bracket, power cable and replaceable button package
Standard Warranty: 2 years
|CDM750 Mobile Two-Way Radio Spec. Sheet
CDM Series Product Accessory Catalog
CDM Series Product Brochure
CDM750 Users Manual


text:
Just because SOPA and PIPA, the infamous internet "kill switch" bills, are largely dead does not mean the threat to internet free speech has become any less serious. TheCyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act(CISPA), also known as H.R. 3523, is the latest mutation of these internet censorship and spying bills to hit the U.S. Congress — and unless the American people speak up now to stop it, CISPA could lead to far worse repercussions for online free speech than SOPA or PIPA ever would have.
CNET, the popular technology news website that was among many others who spoke up against SOPA and PIPA earlier in the year, is also one of many now sounding the alarm about CISPA, which was authored by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.). Though the bill's promoters are marketing it as being nothing like SOPA or PIPA, CISPA is exactly like those bills, except worse.
What CISPA will do, if passed, is remove all the legal barriers that currently stop internet service providers, government agencies, and others from arbitrarily spying on internet users. In the name of "cybersecurity," a term that is undefined in the bill, CISPA will essentially allow internet users to be surveilled by the government without probable cause or a search warrant, which is a clear violation of users' constitutional civil liberties.
Additionally, it will allow websites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter to intercept emails, text messages, and other private information that might be considered a threat to "cybersecurity." The government can then demand access to this information, even if it has nothing to do with copyright infringement, which is one of the excuses being used for why such a bill is needed in the first place.
Internet users are already required to abide by the same laws as everyone else
"Just because you commit a crime on the internet doesn't immunize you from liability just because it's on the internet," said Kendall Burman from theCenter for Democracy & Technology, an internet freedom of speech advocacy group, toRussia Today(RT) in a recent interview. "Law enforcement has many tools to go after crimes that are committed anywhere, including the internet."
And Burman is right. Contrary to what former presidential candidate Rick Santorum and others have inferred about the internet being an unregulated "free for all," internet users are already required to abide by the same rules as everyone else. And those who commit crimes online are subject to the same legal obligations as those who commit them offline.
"When you talk about using information that the government receives that's purportedly for the purpose of protecting cybersecurity, and you're using it for law enforcement purposes or national security purposes that don't have anything to do with cybersecurity, well law enforcement has tools already to go after those crimes," added Burman. "And we very much fear that the information sharing machine that's related to cybersecurity could very much become a backdoor wiretap or a surveillance program by another name."


text:
Stanford's autonomous helicopter group has made some impressive advancements in the field of autonomous helicopter control, including inverted hovering and performing aerobatic stunts. The group uses reinforcement learning to teach its control system various maneuvers and has been very successful in doing so. One of their latest achievements was teaching the bot the emergency landing technique autorotation. Autorotation is used when a helicopter's engine fails or is disengaged and works by changing the collective pitch to use the airflow from descent to rotate the blades. The group has more flight demonstrations on their YouTube channel.
[via BotJunkie]


text:
If you were looking to blow through borders, get in low-key pursuits with "enemy agents" and perform narrow ramp water crossings the 1975 Pontiac Trans Am was the car for you. At least that was the premise of this amusing vintage advertisement.
Although the enemy Rover was pretty cool it was no match for the Trans Am—at least according to this commercial from 1975. We don't doubt the Pontiac had a slight advantage but a little more spirited driving and a better attempt at the suspiciously T/A sized ramps could have really upped the entertainment value of this vintage ad.
Having said that, we actually can't come up with many better new automotive options from 1975 in which to give unarmed enemy agents their walking papers and arrive in style at a trench coat rendezvous than the Trans Am.


text:
When I saw some snapshots at IG of this stunning
split level apartment I fell in love right away...
This apartment is decorated by Talented Marie Ramse in a simple
monochrome color scheme and includes this beautiful loft bedroom
that caugt my eye immediately.
The five-meter high window section
opening out into the magnificent view and balcony is so inviting,
Would love waking up with this amazing view and being surrounded
by the harmonious and quiet atmosphere...
see more of this lighthouse at Hitta Hem here and be inspired!
photos: Sara Medina Lind


text:
George Washington Hill
Our editors will review what you've submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
- Born:
- October 22, 1884 Philadelphia Pennsylvania
- Died:
- September 13, 1946 (aged 61) Canada
George Washington Hill, (born Oct. 22, 1884, Philadelphia—died Sept. 13, 1946, Matapedia, Que., Can.), American businessman whose marketing efforts introduced women to cigarettes.
Leaving Williams College before he graduated, Hill in 1904 went to work at the American Tobacco Company, where his father served as vice president. When the company bought the line of Pall Mall cigarettes, the younger Hill was put in charge of sales, and the cigarettes became the most popular among Turkish tobaccos. In 1911, the company was divided into four large competing firms as a result of a major antitrust suit. The senior Hill became president of the new American, and his son became sales manager. Five years later, they introduced the Lucky Strike brand, and Hill made the new cigarette his pet project, designing its marketing and advertising campaign himself, though the campaign's success was largely due to the work of groundbreaking publicist Edward Bernays. Hill became president of the firm upon his father's death in 1925, and by the following year, Lucky Strike accounted for one-fifth of U.S. cigarette sales. In 1927 he created an industry sensation by gearing advertising toward women for the first time. Female movie stars and singers lauded the brand, and soon Luckys accounted for 38 percent of U.S. cigarette sales. At the beginning of the Great Depression, the company was thriving, and Hill's total salary was more than $2,000,000. He strongly believed in advertising and invested heavily in radio air time, sponsoring Your Hit Parade and the Jack Benny Show. Hill was an early sponsor for Frank Sinatra, Ethel Smith, and Lawrence Tibbett.


text:
Colour: sly fox
Size and fit
This product contains no environmentally harmful per- or polyfluorinated chemicals (PFCs).
More information
This product was made in Europe. As such we support regional expertise, eliminating long transport routes.
This product was manufactured under fair working conditions in conformity with Fair Wear Foundation.
More information
This product is climate neutral. It was produced in the most environmentally friendly way possible. Any unavoidable CO2 emissions have been offset.
More information
For more sustainability! This product contains recycled polyamide.
Less weight, more performance
Lightweight, water-resistant insulating jacket with Swisswool for ski tours
- Less weight with increased insulation
- Excellent moisture regulation
- Maximum freedom of movement
The Swisswool PIZ BOÈ JACKET for women is ideal for the discerning ski tourer who knows that less is more: less weight, less volume but more performance.
The robust PERTEX® QUANTUM shell makes the lightweight insulating jacket extremely windproof and abrasion resistant, with the quilted outer fabric providing a stylish pixel look. A 60 g/m2 Swisswool ® lining not only provides excellent insulation against the cold, the fibers also have a moisture-regulating function, absorbing up to 35% of their own weight in moisture. Thanks to its athletic cut and elastic MERINO NATURETEC LIGHT inserts under the arms, the Swisswool PIZ BOÈ JACKET for women adapts to your every move, even in the most demanding terrain.
The tight-fitting, elastic hood, elastic waistband and cuffs keep the wind and cold at bay on freezing summits. The two generous front pockets and breast pocket provide space for items you need to keep at hand, even if you have a backpack or belt.
The Swisswool PIZ BOÈ JACKET for women is therefore the ideal companion for demanding tours, where low weight and maximum performance are required.
Area of usage
Product features Product features
- 2 front pockets
- Elastic hood
- Elastic cuffs
- Ergonomic cut
- Stretch underarm inserts made of MERINO NATURETEC LIGHT
- Athletic fit
Material properties Material properties
- Produced and processed in an environmentally-friendly way
- Sustainable raw material
- Warms even when wet
- Moisture regulating
- Optimized pack size
- Ideal weight-to-insulation ratio (60 g/ m²)
- Robust nylon
- Windproof and water resistant
- Naturetec light: elastic and breathable
- PFC free: water and dirt run off
Material Material
OUTER: PERTEX® QUANTUM: 100 % polyamide (recycled) PADDING: 88 % virgin wool (Swisswool) + 12 % polylactide LINING: 100 % polyamide (recycled) INSERTS: 75 % polyamide (recycled) + 18 % wool (OWP-MERINO) + 7 % elastane
We have been using Swisswool– wool fibers from Switzerland – as insulation material since 2011. A sustainable wool of regional origin, it warms superbly even when wet, is easy to care for and offers a perfect microclimate.
Merino Inside
Our sustainable MERINO WOOL comes from monitored, ethical sheep farms. It is comfortably soft, easy to care for, and provides an optimum body climate thanks to its moisture- and temperature-regulating properties.
Pertex Quantum
Sustainable PERTEX® QUANTUM material is made of recycled polyamide, and its tight weave makes it extremely windproof and abrasion resistant yet comfortably soft. It is also particularly lightweight with a small pack size.
The special features of the robust wool fibers from Switzerland are their outstanding thermal properties and excellent climate control. SWISSWOOL is our climate-neutral insulation material with a regional origin.
You might also like these products
Lightweight insulated jacket as an additional layer for freeriding on cold days
Functional merino fleece jacket with Swisswool inserts for ski tours and high alpine tours
Close-fitting, seamless, very breathable merino zip shirt for midwinter tours
Super-light, versatile insulating jacket made from Swisswool for any alpine tour


text:
32" Transparent Cover - Bellagio v2.0
32" Transparent Cover - Bellagio v2.0
or 4 installments of $8.75 by More info
You must register to use the waitlist feature. Please login or create an account
Out of stock
sku: BAC20938.999
Protect your Bellagio Spinner trunks with these custom covers. Fits easily over your trunk to keep it looking new.
Compatible with the second generation of Bellagio and Moleskine polycarbonate hardside spinners.
*Not covered by the warranty.
Country of Origin
Color Weight
0.79 lbs
Product Care
Clean the hard material with a non-abrasive detergent cream. Minor scratches can be buffed out with a powder cleanser such as Bon Ami.
For all the collections with leather trimmings, clean delicately the stained area with a soft and dry cloth. In case of greasy or persistent stain, use a small quantity of neutral wax or a leather cleaning product on a soft cloth and rub delicately. Then polish with a clean and dry cloth.
Since the leather may fade, first try cleaning on a hidden part of the trimming before trying to remove the stain.
The trimmings are made of tanned leather to enhance color and sensation to the touch. Exposition to rain or humidity may cause colors to fade or splotches to appear. If the part is in contact with water, remove the liquid by dabbing the part with a dry cloth. Then let it dry completely away from sources of heat before putting it away. Do not brush. Do not immerse the product in water. Do not dry clean. Do not use benzene or alcohol based products.


text:
The Reef Wall
Capitol Reef is a nearly 100-mile long warp in the Earth's crust, the Waterpocket Fold is a classic monocline: a regional fold with one very steep side in an area of otherwise nearly horizontal layers. A monocline is a "step-up" in the rock layers. The rock layers on the west side of the Waterpocket Fold have been lifted more than 7,000 feet (2,134 m) higher than the layers on the east. Capitol Reef National Park, 2013
Blue Sky for a Red Life
Saguaro National Park, Tuscon, Arizona
Land and Sky
Exploring the Depth of the landscape at Capitol Reef National Park, 2013
Great Sand Dunes National Park
Hiking the Great Sand Dunes National Park
Airport Overlook
Sedona, Arizona
Reef Canyon Walls
I walked alone in the canyon for several miles, hearing nothing. Sound travels unbelieveably far here and the pictographs from the ancients told me I was not the first to tread here. The is a very spiritual and ancient feeling here.
Red Shadows
Clouds and Earth, B&W
The Sparse life contrasts with the rock as the rock seems to contrast with the sky. all vying for space. Capital Reef National Park, 2013
Deep Canyon, B&W
The walls rose some 100 plus feet above the canyon floor; an endless geological maze. Capitol Reef National Park, 2013
The Salt Flats Boarder
Bonniville Salt Flats, UT
Walls and Guardians, B&W
The soaring walls guard all the secrets in the Reef Maze. Capitol Reef National Park, 2013
Clouds in the High Desert
Capital Dome in the Light, B&W
Viewing capital dome from the shadows as the clouds cleared to light up the dome itself. Capitol Reef National Park, 2013
The Reef Wall; B&W
An ominous barrier bars passage to the deeper canyons beyond. Capitol Reef National Park, 2013
All Content and Images © 2006-2015 Kyle Colby, KColby Photography. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright Notice and Disclaimer


text:
Nikita 4×02 Promo "Dead or Alive"
Nikita 4×02 "Dead or Alive" – Nikita (Maggie Q) reunites with Michael (Shane West), Birkhoff (Aaron Stanford) and Ryan (Noah Bean) aboard the team's aircraft command center. Michael refuses to discuss their relationship but tells Nikita she should stay with the group and let them help her clear her name. Ryan realizes Amanda (Melinda Clarke) is making doubles of VIPs with The Shop's help. Nikita discovers that one of the doubles is the Director of the FBI (guest star Alex Carter), but doesn't know how to kill him without exposing herself. Meanwhile, Alex (Lyndsy Fonseca) holds Sam (Devon Sawa) at gunpoint and demands he return what he stole from her, but when a gang of thugs attacks them they are forced to work together to escape. John Badham directed the episode written by Albert Kim (#402).