In this article, we prove a strong version of the local Bertini theorem for normality on local rings in mixed characteristic. The main result asserts that a generic hyperplane section of a normal, Cohen-Macaulay, and complete local domain of dimension at least 3 is normal. Applications include the study of characteristic ideals attached to torsion modules over normal domains, which is fundamental in the study of Euler system theory, Iwasawa's main conjectures, and the deformation theory of Galois representations.