(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 1999 1 Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus APPRENDI v. NEW JERSEY CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY No. 99­478. Argued March 28, 2000- Decided June 26, 2000 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 prose- cutor filed a motion to enhance the sentence. The court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the shooting was racially moti- vated and sentenced Apprendi to a 12-year term on the firearms count. In upholding the sentence, the appeals court rejected Ap- prendi's claim that the Due Process Clause requires that a bias find- ing be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The State Su- preme Court affirmed. Held: The Constitution requires that any fact that increases the pen- alty 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. 7­31. (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, 2 APPRENDI v. NEW JERSEY Syllabus 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 pre- scribed 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 nov- elty 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. 9­18. (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 85­88, 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 im- pose an enhanced sentence based on prior convictions not alleged in the indictment- represents at best an exceptional departure from the historic practice. Pp. 19­24. (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 Jer- sey provides for first-degree crimes on his finding, by a preponder- ance 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 ex- Cite as: 530 U. S. ____ (2000) 3 Syllabus poses 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 legisla- ture 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. 25­31. 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 concur- ring 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. Cite as: 530 U. S. ____ (2000) 1 Opinion of the Court 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, Wash- ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 99­478 _________________ CHARLES C. APPRENDI, JR., PETITIONER v. NEW JERSEY ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY [June 26, 2000] 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:39­4(a) (West 1995). Such an offense is punishable by imprisonment for "between five years and 10 years." §2C:43­6(a)(2). A separate statute, described by that State's Supreme Court as a "hate crime" law, provides for an "extended term" of i m- prisonment 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, hand i- cap, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity." N. J. Stat. Ann. §2C:44­3(e) (West Supp. 2000). The extended term authorized by the hate crime law for second-degree o f- fenses is imprisonment for "between 10 and 20 years." §2C:43­7(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 2 APPRENDI v. NEW JERSEY Opinion of the Court 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 Vin e- land, 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 indic t- ment 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 wea p- ons. 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:39­4a (West 1995), and one count (22) of the third-degree offense of unlawful posse s- sion of an antipersonnel bomb, §2C:39­3a; the prosecutor dismissed the other 20 counts. Under state law, a second- degree offense carries a penalty range of 5 to 10 years, §2C:43­6(a)(2); a third-degree offense carries a penalty range of between 3 and 5 years, §2C:43­6(a)(3). As part of the plea agreement, however, the State reserved the right to request the court to impose a higher "enhanced" se n- tence on count 18 (which was based on the December 22 shooting) on the ground that that offense was committed Cite as: 530 U. S. ____ (2000) 3 Opinion of the Court with a biased purpose, as described in §2C:44­3(e). A p- prendi, 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 second-degree counts were critical. If the judge found no basis for the biased purpose enhanc e- ment, the maximum consecutive sentences on those counts would amount to 20 years in aggregate; if, however, the judge enhanced the sentence on count 18, the maximum on that count alone would be 20 years and the maximum for the two counts in aggregate would be 30 years, with a 15-year period of parole ineligibility. After the trial judge accepted the three guilty pleas, the prosecutor filed a formal motion for an extended term. The trial judge thereafter held an evidentiary hearing on the issue of Apprendi's "purpose" for the shooting on D e- cember 22. Apprendi adduced evidence from a psychol o- gist and from seven character witnesses who testified that he did not have a reputation for racial bias. He also took the stand himself, explaining that the incident was an unintended consequence of overindulgence in alcohol, denying that he was in any way biased against African- Americans, and denying that his statement to the police had been accurately described. The judge, however, found the police officer's testimony credible, and concluded that the evidence supported a finding "that the crime was motivated by racial bias." App. to Pet. for Cert. 143a. Having found "by a preponderance of the evidence" that Apprendi's actions were taken "with a purpose to intim i- 4 APPRENDI v. NEW JERSEY Opinion of the Court date" as provided by the statute, id., at 138a, 139a, 144a, the trial judge held that the hate crime enhancement applied. Rejecting Apprendi's constitutional challenge to the statute, the judge sentenced him to a 12-year term of imprisonment on count 18, and to shorter concurrent sentences on the other two counts. Apprendi appealed, arguing, inter alia, that the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution requires that the finding of bias upon which his hate crime se n- tence was based must be proved to a jury beyond a re a- sonable doubt, In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970). Over dissent, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey upheld the enhanced sentence. 304 N. J. Super. 147, 698 A. 2d 1265 (1997). Relying on our decision in McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79 (1986), the appeals court found that the state legislature decided to make the hate crime enhancement a "sentencing factor," rather than an element of an underlying offense- and that decision was within the State's established power to define the elements of its crimes. The hate crime statute did not create a presumption of guilt, the court determined, and did not appear "tailored to permit the . . . finding to be a tail which wags the dog of the substantive offense." 304 N. J. Super., at 154, 698 A. 2d, at 1269 (quoting McMillan, 477 U. S., at 88). Characterizing the required finding as one of "motive," the court described it as a traditional "sentencing factor," one not considered an "essential el e- ment" of any crime unless the legislature so provides. 304 N. J. Super., at 158, 698 A. 2d, at 1270. While recognizing that the hate crime law did expose defendants to "greater and additional punishment," id., at 156, 698 A. 2d, at 1269 (quoting McMillan, 477 U. S., at 88), the court held that that "one factor standing alone" was not sufficient to render the statute unconstitutional, Ibid. A divided New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed. 159 N. J. 7, 731 A. 2d 485 (1999). The court began by e x- Cite as: 530 U. S. ____ (2000) 5 Opinion of the Court plaining that while due process only requires the State to prove the "elements" of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt, the mere fact that a state legislature has placed a criminal component "within the sentencing provisions" of the criminal code "does not mean that the finding of a biased purpose to intimidate is not an essential element of the offense." Id., at 20, 731 A. 2d, at 492. "Were that the case," the court continued, "the Legislature could just as easily allow judges, not juries, to determine if a kidna p- ping victim has been released unharmed." Ibid. (citing state precedent requiring such a finding to be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt). Neither could the constitutional ques