Cite as: 530 U. S. 466 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
227 (1999), the court concluded that those doubts were not essential to our holding. Turning then, as the appeals court had, to McMillan, as well as to Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224 (1998), the court undertook a multifactor inquiry and then held that the hate crime provision was valid. In the majority's view, the statute did not allow impermissible burden shifting, and did not "create a separate offense calling for a separate penalty." 159 N. J., at 24, 731 A. 2d, at 494. Rather, "the Legislature simply took one factor that has always been considered by sentencing courts to bear on punishment and dictated the weight to be given that factor." Ibid., 731 A. 2d, at 494-495. As had the appeals court, the majority recognized that the state statute was unlike that in McMillan inasmuch as it increased the maximum penalty to which a defendant could be subject. But it was not clear that this difference alone would "change the constitutional calculus," especially where, as here, "there is rarely any doubt whether the defendants committed the crimes with the purpose of intimidating the victim on the basis of race or ethnicity." 159 N. J., at 24-25, 731 A. 2d, at 495. Moreover, in light of concerns "idiosyncratic" to hate crime statutes drawn carefully to avoid "punishing thought itself," the enhancement served as an appropriate balance between those concerns and the State's compelling interest in vindicating the right "to be free of invidious discrimination." Id., at 25-26, 731 A. 2d, at 495.
The dissent rejected this conclusion, believing instead that the case turned on two critical characteristics: (1) "[A] defendant's mental state in committing the subject offense . . . necessarily involves a finding so integral to the charged offense that it must be characterized as an element thereof"; and (2) "the significantly increased sentencing range triggered by . . . the finding of a purpose to intimidate" means that the purpose "must be treated as a material element [that] must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt."
473
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