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Opinion of the Court
In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970). But Winship, the case in which the Court set forth this proposition of constitutional law, does not decide this case. It said that the Constitution entitles juveniles, like adults, to the benefit of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in respect to the elements of the crime. It did not consider whether, or when, the Constitution requires the Government to treat a particular fact as an element, i. e., as a "fact necessary to constitute the crime," even where the crime-defining statute does not do so.
Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684 (1975), provides petitioner with stronger support. The Court there struck down a state homicide statute under which the State presumed that all homicides were committed with "malice," punishable by life imprisonment, unless the defendant proved that he had acted in the heat of passion. Id., at 688. The Court wrote that "if Winship were limited to those facts that constitute a crime as defined by state law, a State could undermine many of the interests that decision sought to protect" just by redefining "the elements that constitut[ed] different crimes, characterizing them as factors that bear solely on the extent of punishment." Id., at 698. It simultaneously held that the prosecution must establish "beyond a reasonable doubt" the nonexistence of "heat of passion"—the fact that, under the State's statutory scheme, distinguished a homicide punishable by a life sentence from a homicide punishable by a maximum of 20 years. Id., at 704. Read literally, this language, we concede, suggests that Congress cannot permit judges to increase a sentence in light of recidivism, or any other factor, not set forth in an indictment and proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
This Court's later case, Patterson v. New York, supra, however, makes absolutely clear that such a reading of Mullaney is wrong. The Court, in Patterson, pointed out that the State in Mullaney made the critical fact—the absence of "heat of passion"—not simply a potential sentencing factor, but also a critical part of the definition of "malice afore-
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