Cite as: 526 U. S. 227 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
Jones that he faced a maximum sentence of 15 years on the carjacking charge. App. 4-5, 7. Consistently with this advice, the District Court's subsequent jury instructions defined the elements subject to the Government's burden of proof by reference solely to the first paragraph of § 2119, with no mention of serious bodily injury. Id., at 10. The jury found Jones guilty on both counts.
The case took a new turn, however, with the arrival of the presentence report, which recommended that petitioner be sentenced to 25 years for the carjacking because one of the victims had suffered serious bodily injury. The report noted that Mutanna had testified that Oliver's gun caused profuse bleeding in Mutanna's ear, and that a physician had concluded that Mutanna had suffered a perforated eardrum, with some numbness and permanent hearing loss. Id., at 15-16; 60 F. 3d, at 554. Jones objected that the 25-year recommendation was out of bounds, since serious bodily injury was an element of the offense defined in part by § 2119(2), which had been neither pleaded in the indictment nor proven before the jury. App. 12-13. The District Court saw the matter differently and, based on its finding that the serious bodily injury allegation was supported by a preponderance of the evidence, imposed a 25-year sentence on the carjacking count, ibid., together with a consecutive 5-year sentence for the firearm offense, 60 F. 3d, at 549.
Like the trial court, the Court of Appeals did not read § 2119(2) as setting out an element of an independent offense.2 Id., at 551-554. The Ninth Circuit thus agreed with the Eleventh, see United States v. Williams, 51 F. 3d 1004, 1009-1010 (1995), in reasoning that the structure of
2 The Ninth Circuit vacated another portion of the District Court's sentencing decision and remanded. United States v. Oliver, 60 F. 3d 547, 555-556 (1995). On remand, the District Court reduced petitioner's car-jacking sentence to 20 years and his total sentence to 25 years, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. App. 41-43; judgt. order reported at 116 F. 3d 1487 (1997).
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