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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 11–9335
_________________
ALLEN RYAN ALLEYNE, PETITIONER v. UNITED
STATES
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the fourth circuit
[June 17, 2013]
Justice Thomas
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of
the Court with respect to Parts I, III–B, III–C, and
IV, and an opinion with respect to Parts II and III–A, in
which Justice Ginsburg, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Kagan
join.
In Harris v. United
States, 536 U. S. 545 (2002) , this Court held that judicial
factfinding that increases the mandatory minimum sentence for a
crime is permissible under the Sixth Amendment. We granted
certiorari to consider whether that decision should be overruled.
568 U. S. ___ (2012).
Harris drew a
distinction between facts that increase the statutory maximum and
facts that increase only the mandatory minimum. We conclude that
this distinction is inconsistent with our decision in Apprendi v.
New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000) , and with the original
meaning of the Sixth Amendment. Any fact that, by law, increases
the penalty for a crime is an “element” that must be
submitted to the jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt. See id.,
at 483, n. 10, 490. Mandatory minimum sentences increase the
penalty for a crime. It follows, then, that any fact that increases
the mandatory minimum is an “element” that must be
submitted to the jury. Accordingly, Harris is overruled.
I
Petitioner Allen Ryan
Alleyne and an accomplice devised a plan to rob a store manager as
he drove the store’s daily deposits to a local bank. By
feigning car trouble, they tricked the manager to stop.
Alleyne’s accomplice approached the manager with a gun and
demanded the store’s deposits, which the manager surrendered.
Alleyne was later charged with multiple federal offenses, includ-
ing robbery affecting interstate commerce, 18 U. S. C.
§1951(a), and using or carrying a firearm in relation to a
crime of violence, §924(c)(1)(A). Section 924(c)(1)(A)
provides, in relevant part, that anyone who “uses or carries
a firearm” in relation to a “crime of violence”
shall:
“(i) be
sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 5 years;
“(ii) if the
firearm is brandished, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of
not less than 7 years; and
“(iii) if the
firearm is discharged, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of
not less than 10 years.”
The jury convicted Alleyne. The jury indicated
on the verdict form that Alleyne had “[u]sed or carried a
firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence,” but
did not indicate a finding that the firearm was
“[b]randished.” App. 40.
The presentence report
recommended a 7-year sentence on the §924(c) count, which
reflected the mandatory minimum sentence for cases in which a
firearm has been “brandished,” §924(c)(1)(A)(ii).
Alleyne objected to this recommendation. He argued that it was
clear from the verdict form that the jury did not find brandishing
beyond a reasonable doubt and that he was subject only to the
5-year minimum for “us[ing] or carr[ying] a firearm.”
Al- leyne contended that raising his mandatory minimum sentence
based on a sentencing judge’s finding that he brandished a
firearm would violate his Sixth Amendment right to a jury
trial.
The District Court
overruled Alleyne’s objection. It explained that, under
Harris, brandishing was a sentencing factor that the court could
find by a preponderance of evidence without running afoul of the
Constitution. It found that the evidence supported a finding of
brandishing, and sentenced Alleyne to seven years’
imprisonment on the §924(c) count. The Court of Appeals
affirmed, likewise noting that Alleyne’s objection was
foreclosed by Harris. 457 Fed. Appx. 348 (CA4 2011) (per
curiam).
II
The Sixth Amendment
provides that those “accused” of a “crime”
have the right to a trial “by an impartial jury.” This
right, in conjunction with the Due Process Clause, requires that
each element of a crime be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable
doubt. United States v. Gaudin, 515 U. S. 506, 510 (1995) ; In
re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970) . The substance and
scope of this right depend upon the proper designation of the facts
that are elements of the crime.
A
The question of how
to define a “crime”—and, thus, how to determine
what facts must be submitted to the jury—has generated a
number of divided opinions from this Court. The principal source of
disagreement is the constitutional status of a special sort of fact
known as a “sentencing factor.” This term was first
used in McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79, 86 (1986) , to
refer to facts that are not found by a jury but that can still
increase the defendant’s punishment. Following
McMillan’s introduction of this term, this Court has made a
number of efforts to delimit its boundaries.
McMillan initially
invoked the distinction between “elements” and
“sentencing factors” to reject a constitutional
challenge to Pennsylvania’s Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Act,
42 Pa. Cons. Stat. §9712 (1982). That law provided that anyone
convicted of certain felonies would be subject to a mandatory
minimum sentence if the judge found, by a preponderance of
evidence, that the person “ ‘visibly possessed a
firearm’ ” in the course of committing specified
crimes. 477 U. S., at 81, n. 1. While the Court
acknowledged that there were constitutional limits to the
State’s ability to “defin[e] crimes and prescrib[e]
penalties,” it found that the Commonwealth had permissi- bly
defined visible possession as a sentencing factor, rather than an
element. Id., at 86. In the Court’s view, this allowed the
judge, rather than the jury, to find this fact by a preponderance
of evidence without violating the Constitution.
McMillan did not
address whether legislatures’ freedom to define facts as
sentencing factors extended to findings that increased the maximum
term of imprisonment for an offense. We foreshadowed an answer to
this question in Jones v. United States, 526 U. S. 227 ,
n. 6 (1999), but did not resolve the issue until Apprendi.
There, we identified a concrete limit on the types of facts that
legislatures may designate as sentencing factors.
In Apprendi, the
defendant was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment under a New
Jersey statute that increased the maximum term of imprisonment from
10 years to 20 years if the trial judge found that the defendant
committed his crime with racial bias. 530 U. S., at 470. In
defending its sentencing scheme, the State of New Jersey argued
that, under McMillan, the legislature could define racial bias as a
sentencing factor to be found by the judge. We declined to extend
McMillan that far. We explained that there was no “principled
basis for treating” a fact increasing the maximum term of
imprisonment differently than the facts constituting the base
offense. 530 U. S., at 476. The historic link between crime
and punishment, instead, led us to conclude that any fact that
increased the prescribed statutory maximum sentence must be an
“element” of the offense to be found by the jury. Id.,
at 483, n. 10, 490. We, thus, found that Apprendi’s
sentence had been unconstitutionally enhanced by the judge’s
finding of racial bias by a preponderance of evidence. Id., at
491–492.
B
While Apprendi only
concerned a judicial finding that increased the statutory maximum,
the logic of Apprendi prompted questions about the continuing
vitality, if not validity, of McMillan’s holding that facts
found to increase the mandatory minimum sentence are sentencing
factors and not elements of the crime. We responded two years later
in Harris v. United States, 536 U. S. 545 , where we
considered the same statutory provision and the same question
before us today.
In Harris, the
defendant was charged, under §924(c) (1)(A), with carrying a
firearm in the course of committing a drug trafficking crime. The
mandatory minimum sentence based on the jury’s verdict alone
was five years, but the District Court imposed a 7-year mandatory
minimum sentence based on its finding, by a preponderance of
evidence, that the defendant also brandished the firearm. As in
this case, Harris challenged his sentence on the ground that the
7-year mandatory minimum sentence was unconstitutional under
Apprendi, even though the judge’s finding did not alter the
maximum sentence to which he was exposed. Harris, supra, at
551.
The Court declined to
apply Apprendi to facts that increased the mandatory minimum
sentence but not the maximum sentence. 536 U. S., at 557. In
the Court’s view, judicial factfinding that increased the
mandatory minimum did not implicate the Sixth Amendment. Because
the jury’s verdict “authorized the judge to impose the
minimum with or without the finding,” ibid., the Court was of
the view that the factual basis for increasing the minimum sentence
was not “ ‘essential’ ” to the
defendant’s punishment. Id., at 560–561 (plurality
opinion). Instead, it merely limited the judge’s
“choices within the authorized range.” Id., at 567.
From this, the Court drew a distinction between “facts
increasing the defendant’s minimum sentence and facts
extending the sentence beyond the statutory maximum,” id., at
566. The Court limited Apprendi’s holding to instances where
the factual finding increases the statutory maximum sentence.
III
Alleyne contends that
Harris was wrongly decided and that it cannot be reconciled with
our reasoning in Apprendi. We agree.
A
The touchstone for
determining whether a fact must be found by a jury beyond a
reasonable doubt is whether the fact constitutes an
“element” or “ingredient” of the charged
offense. United States v. O’Brien, 560 U. S. 218 , ___
(2010) (slip op., at 5); Apprendi, supra, at 483, n. 10; J.
Archbold, Pleading and Evidence in Criminal Cases 52 (5th Am. ed.
1846) (hereinafter Archbold). In Apprendi, we held that a fact is
by definition an element of the offense and must be submitted to
the jury if it increases the punishment above what is otherwise
legally prescribed. 530 U. S., at 483, n. 10. While
Harris declined to extend this principle to facts increasing
mandatory minimum sentences, Apprendi’s definition of
“elements” necessarily includes not only facts that
increase the ceiling, but also those that increase the floor. Both
kinds of facts alter the prescribed range of sentences to which a
defendant is exposed and do so in a manner that aggravates the
punishment. 530 U. S., at 483, n. 10; Harris, supra, at
579 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Facts that increase the mandatory
minimum sentence are therefore elements and must be submitted to
the jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt.
1
At common law, the
relationship between crime and punishment was clear. As discussed
in Apprendi, “[t]he substantive criminal law tended to be
sanction-specific,” meaning “it prescribed a particular
sentence for each offense.” Langbein, The English Criminal
Trial Jury on the Eve of the French Revolution, in The Trial Jury
in England, France, Germany 1700–1900, p. 36 (A. Schioppa ed.
1987) (quoted in Apprendi, supra, at 479). The system left judges
with little sentencing discretion: once the facts of the offense
were determined by the jury, the “judge was meant simply to
impose [the prescribed] sentence.” Langbein, supra, at
36–37; see also 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of
England 396 (1768) (“The judgment, though pronounced or
awarded by the judges, is not their determination or sentence, but
the determination and sentence of the law” (emphasis
deleted)). This Court has recognized that the same was true, in
many instances, early on in this country. United States v. Grayson,
438 U. S. 41, 45 (1978) ; see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Smith, 1
Mass. 245 (1804) (describing state law that specified a punishment
for larceny of damages three times the value of the stolen goods).
While some early American statutes provided ranges of permissible
sentences, K. Stith & J. Cabranes, Fear of Judging: Sentencing
Guidelines in the Federal Courts 9 (1998), the ranges themselves
were linked to particular facts constituting the elements of the
crime. E.g., Lacy v. State, 15 Wis. 13 (1862) (discussing arson
statute that provided for a sentence of 7 to 14 years where the
house was occupied at the time of the offense, but a sentence of 3
to 10 if it was not); Ga. Penal Code §§4324–4325
(1867) (robbery “by open force or violence” was
punishable by 4 to 20 years’ imprisonment, while
“[r]obbery by intimidation, or without using force and
violence,” was punishable by 2 to 5 years’
imprisonment). This linkage of facts with particular sentence
ranges (defined by both the minimum and the maximum) reflects the
intimate connection between crime and punishment.
Consistent with this
connection between crime and punishment, various treatises defined
“crime” as consisting of every fact which “is in
law essential to the punishment sought to be inflicted,” 1 J.
Bishop, Criminal Procedure 50 (2d ed. 1872) (hereinafter Bishop),
or the whole of the wrong “to which the law affixes
. . . punishment,” id., §80, at 51. See also 1
J. Bishop, New Criminal Procedure §84, p. 49 (4th ed.
1895) (defining crime as “that wrongful aggregation [of
elements] out of which the punishment proceeds”); Archbold
128 (defining crime to include any fact that “annexes a
higher degree of punishment”). Numerous high courts agreed
that this formulation “accurately captured the common-law
understanding of what facts are elements of a crime.”
Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 511–512 (Thomas, J., concurring)
(collecting cases). If a fact was by law essential to the penalty,
it was an element of the offense.
2
From these widely
recognized principles followed a well-established practice of
including in the indictment, and submitting to the jury, every fact
that was a basis for imposing or increasing punishment. While an
exhaustive history need not be recounted here, see id., at
501–509 (Thomas, J., concurring) (detailing practices of
American courts from the 1840’s onward), a few particularly
salient examples illustrate the point. In Hope v. Commonwealth, 50
Mass. 134 (1845), the defendant was indicted for (and convicted of)
larceny. The larceny statute established two levels of sentencing
based on whether the value of the stolen property exceeded $100.
Because punishment varied with value, the state high court found
that value was an element of the offense:
“Our statutes, it will be
remembered, prescribe the punishment for larceny, with reference to
the value of the property stolen; and for this reason, as well as
because it is in conformity with long established practice, the
court are of [the] opinion that the value of the property alleged
to be stolen must be set forth in the indictment.” Id., at
137.
Numerous other contemporaneous court decisions
reflect this same understanding. See, e.g., Ritchey v. State, 7
Blackf. 168, 169 (Ind. 1844) (holding that indictment for arson
must allege value of property destroyed, because statute set
punishment based on value); United States v. Fisher, 25 F. Cas.
1086 (No. 15,102) (CC Ohio 1849) (McLean, J.) (“A carrier of
the mail is subject to a higher penalty where he steals a letter
out of the mail, which contains an article of value. And when this
offense is committed, the indictment must allege the letter
contained an article of value, which aggravates the offense and
incurs a higher penalty”).
A number of
contemporaneous treatises similarly took the view that a fact that
increased punishment must be charged in the indictment. As one
19th-century commentator explained:
“Where a statute annexes a higher
degree of punishment to a common-law felony, if committed under
particular circumstances, an indictment for the offence, in order
to bring the defendant within that higher degree of punishment,
must expressly charge it to have been committed under those
circumstances, and must state the circumstances with certainty and
precision. [2 M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown *170].” Archbold 51
(15th ed. 1862).
Another explained that “the indictment
must contain an allegation of every fact which is legally essential
to the punishment to be inflicted.” Bishop §81, at 51.
This rule “enabled [the defendant] to determine the species
of offence” with which he was charged “in order that he
may prepare his defence accordingly . . . and that there
may be no doubt as to the judgment which should be given, if the
defendant be convicted.” Archbold 44 (emphasis added). As the
Court noted in Apprendi, “[t]he defendant’s ability to
predict with certainty the judgment from the face of the felony
indictment flowed from the invariable linkage of punishment with
crime.” 530 U. S., at 478.
B
Consistent with
common-law and early American practice, Apprendi concluded that any
“facts that increase the prescribed range of penalties to
which a criminal defendant is exposed” are elements of the
crime. Id., at 490 (internal quotation marks omitted); id., at 483,
n. 10 (“[F]acts that expose a defendant to a punishment
greater than that otherwise legally prescribed were by definition
‘elements’ of a separate legal offense”). [
1 ] We held that the Sixth
Amendment provides defendants with the right to have a jury find
those facts beyond a reasonable doubt. Id., at 484. While Harris
limited Apprendi to facts increasing the statutory maximum, the
principle applied in Apprendi applies with equal force to facts
increasing the mandatory minimum.
It is indisputable that
a fact triggering a mandatory minimum alters the prescribed range
of sentences to which a criminal defendant is exposed. Apprendi,
supra, at 490; Harris, 536 U. S., at 575, 582 (Thomas, J.,
dissenting). But for a finding of brandishing, the penalty is five
years to life in prison; with a finding of brandishing, the penalty
becomes seven years to life. Just as the maximum of life marks the
outer boundary of the range, so seven years marks its floor. And
because the legally prescribed range is the penalty affixed to the
crime, infra, this page, it follows that a fact increasing either
end of the range produces a new penalty and constitutes an
ingredient of the offense. Apprendi, supra, at 501 (Thomas, J.,
concurring); see also Bishop §598, at 360–361 (if
“a statute prescribes a particular punishment to be inflicted
on those who commit it under special circumstances which it
mentions, or with particular aggravations,” then those
special circumstances must be specified in the indictment (emphasis
added)); 1 F. Wharton, Criminal Law §371, p. 291 (rev.
7th ed. 1874) (similar).
It is impossible to
dissociate the floor of a sentencing range from the penalty affixed
to the crime. See Harris, supra, at 569 (Breyer, J., concurring in
part and concurring in judgment) (facts increasing the minimum and
facts increasing the maximum cannot be distinguished “in
terms of logic”). Indeed, criminal statutes have long
specified both the floor and ceiling of sentence ranges, which is
evidence that both define the legally prescribed penalty. See,
e.g., supra, at 7–8; N. Y. Penal Code
§§231–232, p. 70 (1882) (punishment for
first-degree robbery was 10 to 20 years’ imprisonment;
second-degree robbery was 5 to 15 years); Va. Code ch. 192,
§§1–2, p. 787 (2d ed. 1860) (arson committed at
night was punishable by 5 to 10 years; arson committed during the
day was 3 to 10 years). This historical practice allowed those who
violated the law to know, ex ante, the contours of the penalty that
the legislature affixed to the crime—and comports with the
obvious truth that the floor of a mandatory range is as relevant to
wrongdoers as the ceiling. A fact that increases a sen- tencing
floor, thus, forms an essential ingredient of the offense.
Moreover, it is
impossible to dispute that facts increasing the legally prescribed
floor aggravate the punishment. Harris, supra, at 579 (Thomas, J.,
dissenting); O’Brien, 560 U. S., at ___ (Thomas, J.,
concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 2). Elevating the low-end of
a sentenc- ing range heightens the loss of liberty associated with
the crime: the defendant’s “expected punishment has
increased as a result of the narrowed range” and “the
prosecution is empowered, by invoking the mandatory minimum, to
require the judge to impose a higher punishment than he might
wish.” Apprendi, supra, at 522 (Thomas, J., concurring). Why
else would Congress link an increased mandatory minimum to a
particular aggravating fact other than to heighten the consequences
for that behavior? See McMillan, 477 U. S., at 88, 89 (twice
noting that a mandatory minimum “ ‘ups the
ante’ ” for a criminal defendant); Harris, supra,
at 580 (Thomas, J., dissenting). This reality demonstrates that the
core crime and the fact triggering the mandatory minimum sentence
together constitute a new, aggravated crime, each element of which
must be submitted to the jury. [
2 ]
Defining facts that
increase a mandatory statutory minimum to be part of the
substantive offense enables the defendant to predict the legally
applicable penalty from the face of the indictment. See Apprendi,
530 U. S., at 478–479. It also preserves the historic
role of the jury as an intermediary between the State and criminal
defendants. See United States v. Gaudin, 515 U. S., at
510–511 (“This right was designed ‘to guard
against a spirit of oppression and tyranny on the part of
rulers,’ and ‘was from very early times insisted on by
our ancestors in the parent country, as the great bulwark of their
civil and political liberties’ ” (quoting 2 J.
Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States
§§1779, 1780, pp. 540–541 (4th ed. 1873)));
Williams v. Florida, 399 U. S. 78, 100 (1970) (“[T]he
essential feature of a jury obviously lies in [its] interposition
between the accused and his accuser”); Duncan v. Louisiana,
391 U. S. 145, 155 (1968) (“A right to jury trial is
granted to criminal defendants in order to prevent oppression by
the Government”).
In adopting a contrary
conclusion, Harris relied on the fact that the 7-year minimum
sentence could have been imposed with or without a judicial finding
of brandishing, because the jury’s finding already authorized
a sentence of five years to life. 536 U. S., at 561. The
dissent repeats this argument today. See post, at 5 (opinion of
Roberts, C. J.) (“The jury’s verdict authorized
the judge to impose the precise sentence he imposed for the precise
factual reason he imposed it”). While undoubtedly true, this
fact is beside the point. [
3
]
As noted, the essential
Sixth Amendment inquiry is whether a fact is an element of the
crime. When a finding of fact alters the legally prescribed
punishment so as to aggravate it, the fact necessarily forms a
constituent part of a new offense and must be submitted to the
jury. It is no answer to say that the defendant could have received
the same sentence with or without that fact. It is obvious, for
example, that a defendant could not be convicted and sentenced for
assault, if the jury only finds the facts for larceny, even if the
punishments prescribed for each crime are identical. One reason is
that each crime has different elements and a defendant can be
convicted only if the jury has found each element of the crime of
conviction.
Similarly, because the
fact of brandishing aggravates the legally prescribed range of
allowable sentences, it constitutes an element of a separate,
aggravated offense that must be found by the jury, regardless of
what sentence the defendant might have received if a different
range had been applicable. Indeed, if a judge were to find a fact
that increased the statutory maximum sentence, such a finding would
violate the Sixth Amendment, even if the defendant ultimately
received a sentence falling within the original sentencing range
(i.e., the range applicable without that aggravating fact). Cf.
Hobbs v. State, 44 Tex. 353 (1875) (reversing conviction where the
defendant was indicted for a crime punishable by 2 to 5 years and
sentenced to 3 years because the trial court improperly instructed
the jury to sentence the defendant between 2 to 10 years if it
found a particular aggravating fact); State v. Callahan, 109 La.
946, 33 So. 931 (1903) (finding ex post facto violation where a
newly enacted law increased the range of punishment, even though
defendant was sentenced within the range established by the prior
law). [
4 ] The essential point
is that the aggravating fact produced a higher range, which, in
turn, conclusively indicates that the fact is an element of a
distinct and aggravated crime. It must, therefore, be submitted to
the jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt.
Because there is no
basis in principle or logic to dis- tinguish facts that raise the
maximum from those that increase the minimum, Harris was
inconsistent with Ap-prendi. It is, accordingly, overruled. [
5 ]
C
In holding that facts
that increase mandatory minimum sentences must be submitted to the
jury, we take care to note what our holding does not entail. Our
ruling today does not mean that any fact that influences judicial
discretion must be found by a jury. We have long recognized that
broad sentencing discretion, informed by judicial factfinding, does
not violate the Sixth Amendment. See, e.g., Dillon v. United
States, 560 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 11)
(“[W]ithin established limits[,] . . . the exercise
of [sentencing] discretion does not contravene the Sixth Amendment
even if it is informed by judge-found facts” (emphasis
deleted and internal quotation marks omitted)); Apprendi, 530
U. S., at 481 (“[N]othing in this history suggests that
it is impermissible for judges to exercise discretion—taking
into consideration various factors relating both to offense and
offender—in imposing a judgment within the range prescribed
by statute”). [
6 ] This
position has firm historical roots as well. As Bishop
explained:
“[W]ithin the limits of any
discretion as to the punishment which the law may have allowed, the
judge, when he pronounces sentence, may suffer his discretion to be
influenced by matter shown in aggravation or mitigation, not
covered by the allegations of the indictment.” Bishop
§85, at 54.
“[E]stablishing what punishment is
available by law and setting a specific punishment within the
bounds that the law has prescribed are two different things.”
Apprendi, supra, at 519 (Thomas, J., concurring). Our decision
today is wholly consistent with the broad discretion of judges to
select a sentence within the range authorized by law.
IV
Here, the sentencing
range supported by the jury’s verdict was five years’
imprisonment to life. The District Court imposed the 7-year
mandatory minimum sentence based on its finding by a preponderance
of evidence that the firearm was “brandished.” Because
the finding of brandishing increased the penalty to which the
defendant was subjected, it was an element, which had to be found
by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge, rather than the
jury, found brandishing, thus violating petitioner’s Sixth
Amendment rights.
Accordingly, we vacate
the Sixth Circuit’s judgment with respect to Alleyne’s
sentence on the §924(c)(1)(A) conviction and remand the case
for resentencing consistent with the jury’s verdict.
It is so
ordered.