Cite as: 526 U. S. 813 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
II
Federal crimes are made up of factual elements, which are ordinarily listed in the statute that defines the crime. A (hypothetical) robbery statute, for example, that makes it a crime (1) to take (2) from a person (3) through force or the threat of force (4) property (5) belonging to a bank would have defined the crime of robbery in terms of the five elements just mentioned. Cf. 18 U. S. C. § 2113(a). Calling a particular kind of fact an "element" carries certain legal consequences. Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224, 239 (1998). The consequence that matters for this case is that a jury in a federal criminal case cannot convict unless it unanimously finds that the Government has proved each element. Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U. S. 356, 369-371 (1972) (Powell, J., concurring); Andres v. United States, 333 U. S. 740, 748 (1948); Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 31(a). The question before us arises because a federal jury need not always decide unanimously which of several possible sets of underlying brute facts make up a particular element, say, which of several possible means the defendant used to commit an element of the crime. Schad v. Arizona, 501 U. S. 624, 631-632 (1991) (plurality opinion); Andersen v. United States, 170 U. S. 481, 499-501 (1898). Where, for example, an element of robbery is force or the threat of force, some jurors might conclude that the defendant used a knife to create the threat; others might conclude he used a gun. But that disagreement—a disagreement about means—would not matter as long as all 12 jurors unanimously concluded that the Government had proved the necessary related element, namely, that the defendant had threatened force. See McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U. S. 433, 449 (1990) (Blackmun, J., concurring).
In this case, we must decide whether the statute's phrase "series of violations" refers to one element, namely a "series," in respect to which the "violations" constitute the underlying brute facts or means, or whether those words
817
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