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Poole v. State8/31/2001
d by racial bias. The trial court then enhanced Apprendi's sentence. Apprendi specifically reserved the right to challenge this enhancement on appeal. Apprendi argued that due process required that the question whether the crime was motivated by bias be presented to a jury and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the enhanced sentence. The United States Supreme Court reversed. Citing earlier decisions, the United States Supreme Court stated:
"It was in McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79 (1986), that this Court, for the first time, coined the term `sentencing factor' to refer to a fact that was not found by a jury but that could affect the sentence imposed by the judge. That case involved a challenge to the State's Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Act, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 9712 (1982). According to its provisions, anyone convicted of certain felonies would be subject to a mandatory minimum penalty of five years imprisonment if the judge found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the person `visibly possessed a firearm' in the course of committing one of the specified felonies. 477 U.S., at 81-82. Articulating for the first time, and then applying, a multifactor set of criteria for determining whether the [In the matter of] Winship[, 397 U.S. 358 (1970)] protections applied to bar such a system, we concluded that the Pennsylvania statute did not run afoul of our previous admonitions against relieving the State of its burden of proving guilt, or tailoring the mere form of a criminal statute solely to avoid Winship's strictures. 477 U.S., at 86-88.
"We did not, however, there 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) that a state scheme that keeps from the jury facts that `expos [defendants] to greater or additional punishment,' id., at 88, may raise serious constitutional concern. As we explained:
"`Section 9712 neither alters the maximum penalty for the crime committed nor creates a separate offense calling for a separate penalty; it operates solely to limit the sentencing court's discretion in selecting a penalty within the range already available to it without the special finding of visible possession of a firearm. ... The statute gives no impression of having been tailored to permit the visible possession finding to be a tail which wags the dog of the substantive offense. Petitioners' claim that visible possession under the Pennsylvania statute is "really" an element of the offenses for which they are being punished -- that Pennsylvania has in effect defined a new set of upgraded felonies -- would have at least more superficial appeal if a finding of visible possession exposed them to greater or additional punishment, cf. 18 U.S.C. § 2113(d) (providing separate and greater punishment for bank robberies accomplished through "use of a dangerous weapon or device"), but it does not.' Id., at 87-88.
"Finally, as we made plain in Jones [v. United States, 526 U.S. 227 (1999)] last Term, Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), represents at best an exceptional departure from the historic practice that we have described. In that case, we considered a federal grand jury indictment, which charged the petitioner with `having been "found in the United States ... after being deported,"' in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) -- an offense carrying a maximum sentence of two years. 523 U.S., at 227. Almendarez-Torres pleaded guilty to the indictment, admitting at the plea hearing that he had been deported, that he had unlawfully reentered this country, and that `the earlier deportation had taken place "pursuant
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