Apprendi v New Jersey

• Decision Date: 26 June 2000
• Docket Number: 99478
• Citation: 120 S.Ct. 2348,147 L.Ed.2d 435,530 U.S. 466
• Parties: CHARLES C. APPRENDI, Jr., PETITIONER v. NEW JERSEYSUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

530 U.S. 466

120 S.Ct. 2348

147 L.Ed.2d 435

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press

CHARLES C. APPRENDI, Jr., PETITIONER v NEW JERSEY

No. 99-478

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Argued March 28, 2000

Decided June 26, 2000

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY

Syllabus

Petitioner Apprendi fired several shots into the home of an African-American family and made a statement-which he later retracted-that he did not want the family in his neighborhood because of their race. He was charged under New Jersey law with, inter alia, second-degree possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, which carries a prison term of 5 to 10 years. The count did not refer to the State's hate crime statute, which provides for an enhanced sentence if a trial judge finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant committed the crime with a purpose to intimidate a person or group because of, inter alia, race. After Apprendi pleaded guilty, the prosecutor filed a motion to enhance the sentence. The court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the shooting was racially motivated and sentenced Apprendi to a 12-year term on the firearms count. In upholding the sentence, the appeals court rejected Apprendi's claim that the Due Process Clause requires that a bias finding be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The State Supreme Court affirmed.

Held: The Constitution requires that any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum, other than the fact of a prior conviction, must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Pp. 7-31.

(a) The answer to the narrow constitutional question presented-whether Apprendi's sentence was permissible, given that it exceeds the 10-year maximum for the offense charged-was foreshadowed by the holding in Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, that, with regard to federal law, the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause and the Sixth Amendment's notice and jury trial guarantees require that any fact other than prior conviction that increases the maximum penalty for a crime must be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The Fourteenth Amendment commands the same answer when a state statute is involved. Pp. 7-9.

(b) The Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury, taken together, entitle a criminal defendant to a jury determination that he is guilty of every element of the crime with which he is charged, beyond a reasonable doubt. E.g., In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364. The historical foundation for these principles extends down centuries into the common law. While judges in this country have long exercised discretion in sentencing, such discretion is bound by the range of sentencing options prescribed by the legislature. See, e.g., United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 447. The historic inseparability of verdict and judgment and the consistent limitation on judges' discretion highlight the novelty of a scheme that removes the jury from the determination of a fact that exposes the defendant to a penalty exceeding the maximum he could receive if punished according to the facts reflected in the jury verdict alone. Pp. 9-18.

(c) McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79, was the first case in which the Court used "sentencing factor" to refer to a fact that was not found by the jury but could affect the sentence imposed by the judge. In finding that the scheme at issue there did not run afoul of Winship's strictures, this Court did not budge from the position that (1) constitutional limits exist to States' authority to define away facts necessary to constitute a criminal offense, id., at 85-88, and (2) a state scheme that keeps from the jury facts exposing defendants to greater or additional punishment may raise serious constitutional concerns, id., at 88. Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224-in which the Court upheld a federal law allowing a judge to impose an enhanced sentence based on prior convictions not alleged in the indictment-represents at best an exceptional departure from the historic practice. Pp. 19-24.

(d) In light of the constitutional rule expressed here, New Jersey's practice cannot stand. It allows a jury to convict a defendant of a second-degree offense on its finding beyond a reasonable doubt and then allows a judge to impose punishment identical to that New Jersey provides for first-degree crimes on his finding, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant's purpose was to intimidate his victim based on the victim's particular characteristic. The State's argument that the biased purpose finding is not an "element" of a distinct hate crime offense but a "sentencing factor" of motive is nothing more than a disagreement with the rule applied in this case. Beyond this, the argument cannot succeed on its own terms. It does not matter how the required finding is labeled, but whether it exposes the defendant to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury's verdict, as does the sentencing "enhancement" here. The degree of culpability the legislature associates with factually distinct conduct has significant implications both for a defendant's liberty and for the heightened stigma associated with an offense the legislature has selected as worthy of greater punishment. That the State placed the enhancer within the criminal code's sentencing provisions does not mean that it is not an essential element of the offense. Pp. 25-31.

159 N. J. 7, 731 A. 2d 485, reversed and remanded.

Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Scalia, Souter, Thomas, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a concurring opinion. Thomas, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Scalia, J., joined as to Parts I and II. O'Connor, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Kennedy and Breyer, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., joined.

Opinion of the Court

Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court.

A New Jersey statute classifies the possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose as a "second-degree" offense. N. J. Stat. Ann. §2C:39-4(a) (West 1995). Such an offense is punishable by imprisonment for "between five years and 10 years." §2C:43-6(a)(2). A separate statute, described by that State's Supreme Court as a "hate crime" law, provides for an "extended term" of imprisonment if the trial judge finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that "[t]he defendant in committing the crime acted with a purpose to intimidate an individual or group of individuals because of race, color, gender, handicap, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity." N. J. Stat. Ann. §2C:44-3(e) (West Supp. 2000). The extended term authorized by the hate crime law for second-degree offenses is imprisonment for "between 10 and 20 years." §2C:43-7(a)(3).

The question presented is whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that a factual determination authorizing an increase in the maximum prison sentence for an offense from 10 to 20 years be made by a jury on the basis of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

I

At 2:04 a.m. on December 22, 1994, petitioner Charles C. Apprendi, Jr., fired several .22-caliber bullets into the home of an African-American family that had recently moved into a previously all-white neighborhood in Vineland, New Jersey. Apprendi was promptly arrested and, at 3:05 a.m., admitted that he was the shooter. After further questioning, at 6:04 a.m., he made a statement-which he later retracted-that even though he did not know the occupants of the house personally, "because they are black in color he does not want them in the neighborhood." 159 N. J. 7, 10, 731 A. 2d 485, 486 (1999).

A New Jersey grand jury returned a 23-count indictment charging Apprendi with four first-degree, eight second-degree, six third-degree, and five fourth-degree offenses. The charges alleged shootings on four different dates, as well as the unlawful possession of various weapons. None of the counts referred to the hate crime statute, and none alleged that Apprendi acted with a racially biased purpose.

The parties entered into a plea agreement, pursuant to which Apprendi pleaded guilty to two counts (3 and 18) of second-degree possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, N. J. Stat. Ann. §2C:39-4a (West 1995), and one count (22) of the third-degree offense of unlawful possession of an antipersonnel bomb, §2C:39-3a; the prosecutor dismissed the other 20 counts. Under state law, a second-degree offense carries a penalty range of 5 to 10 years, §2C:43-6(a)(2); a third-degree offense carries a penalty range of between 3 and 5 years, §2C:43-6(a)(3). As part of the plea agreement, however, the State reserved the right to request the court to impose a higher "enhanced" sentence on count 18 (which was based on the December 22 shooting) on the ground that that offense was committed with a biased purpose, as described in §2C:44-3(e). Apprendi, correspondingly, reserved the right to challenge the hate crime sentence enhancement on the ground that it violates the United States Constitution.

At the plea hearing, the trial judge heard sufficient evidence to establish Apprendi's guilt on counts 3, 18, and 22; the judge then confirmed that Apprendi understood the maximum sentences that could be imposed on those counts. Because the plea agreement provided that the sentence on the sole third-degree offense (count 22) would run concurrently with the other sentences, the potential sentences on the two...