Cite as: 526 U. S. 227 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
Almendarez-Torres, but because the holding last Term rested in substantial part on the tradition of regarding recidivism as a sentencing factor, not as an element to be set out in the indictment. The Court's repeated emphasis on the distinctive significance of recidivism leaves no question that the Court regarded that fact as potentially distinguishable for constitutional purposes from other facts that might extend the range of possible sentencing. See id., at 230 ("At the outset, we note that the relevant statutory subject matter is recidivism"); ibid. ("With recidivism as the subject matter in mind, we turn to the statute's language"); id., at 243 ("First, the sentencing factor at issue here—recidivism— is a traditional, if not the most traditional, basis for a sentencing court's increasing an offender's sentence"); id., at 245 (distinguishing McMillan "in light of the particular sentencing factor at issue in this case—recidivism"). One basis for that possible constitutional distinctiveness is not hard to see: unlike virtually any other consideration used to enlarge the possible penalty for an offense, and certainly unlike the factor before us in this case, a prior conviction must itself have been established through procedures satisfying the fair notice, reasonable doubt, and jury trial guarantees. Almendarez-Torres cannot, then, be read to resolve the due process and Sixth Amendment questions implicated by reading the carjacking statute as the Government urges.10
10 The dissent insists that Almendarez-Torres "controls the question before us," post, at 266, but in substantiating that assertion, it tellingly relies more heavily on the claims of the Almendarez-Torres dissenters than on the statements of the Almendarez-Torres majority. Neither source bears out the current dissent's conclusion. If, as the dissenters in this case suggest, Almendarez-Torres did not turn on the particular "sentencing factor at issue" there, 523 U. S., at 243, but instead stood for the broad proposition that any fact increasing the maximum permissible punishment may be determined by a judge by a preponderance, it is a mystery why the Almendarez-Torres majority engaged in so much discussion of recidivism, or why, at the crux of its constitutional discussion, it turned first to discuss
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