Cite as: 530 U. S. 466 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
V
The New Jersey statutory scheme that Apprendi asks us to invalidate allows a jury to convict a defendant of a second-degree offense based on its finding beyond a reasonable doubt that he unlawfully possessed a prohibited weapon; after a subsequent and separate proceeding, it then allows a judge to impose punishment identical to that New Jersey provides for crimes of the first degree, N. J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:43-6(a)(1) (West 1999), based upon the judge's finding, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant's "purpose" for unlawfully possessing the weapon was "to intimidate" his victim on the basis of a particular characteristic the victim possessed. In light of the constitutional rule exof exposing all who are convicted to the maximum sentence it provides. Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S., at 228-229, n. 13 (Powell, J., dissenting). So exposed, "[t]he political check on potentially harsh legislative action is then more likely to operate." Ibid.
In all events, if such an extensive revision of the State's entire criminal code were enacted for the purpose the dissent suggests, or if New Jersey simply reversed the burden of the hate crime finding (effectively assuming a crime was performed with a purpose to intimidate and then requiring a defendant to prove that it was not, post, at 542), we would be required to question whether the revision was constitutional under this Court's prior decisions. See Patterson, 432 U. S., at 210; Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684, 698-702 (1975).
Finally, the principal dissent ignores the distinction the Court has often recognized, see, e. g., Martin v. Ohio, 480 U. S. 228 (1987), between facts in aggravation of punishment and facts in mitigation. See post, at 541- 542. If facts found by a jury support a guilty verdict of murder, the judge is authorized by that jury verdict to sentence the defendant to the maximum sentence provided by the murder statute. If the defendant can escape the statutory maximum by showing, for example, that he is a war veteran, then a judge that finds the fact of veteran status is neither exposing the defendant to a deprivation of liberty greater than that authorized by the verdict according to statute, nor is the judge imposing upon the defendant a greater stigma than that accompanying the jury verdict alone. Core concerns animating the jury and burden-of-proof requirements are thus absent from such a scheme.
491
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