492
Opinion of the Court
plained above, and all of the cases supporting it, this practice cannot stand.
New Jersey's defense of its hate crime enhancement statute has three primary components: (1) The required finding of biased purpose is not an "element" of a distinct hate crime offense, but rather the traditional "sentencing factor" of motive; (2) McMillan holds that the legislature can authorize a judge to find a traditional sentencing factor on the basis of a preponderance of the evidence; and (3) Almendarez-Torres extended McMillan's holding to encompass factors that authorize a judge to impose a sentence beyond the maximum provided by the substantive statute under which a defendant is charged. None of these persuades us that the constitutional rule that emerges from our history and case law should incorporate an exception for this New Jersey statute.
New Jersey's first point is nothing more than a disagreement with the rule we apply today. Beyond this, we do not see how the argument can succeed on its own terms. The state high court evinced substantial skepticism at the suggestion that the hate crime statute's "purpose to intimidate" was simply an inquiry into "motive." We share that skepticism. The text of the statute requires the factfinder to determine whether the defendant possessed, at the time he committed the subject act, a "purpose to intimidate" on account of, inter alia, race. By its very terms, this statute mandates an examination of the defendant's state of mind— a concept known well to the criminal law as the defendant's mens rea.17 It makes no difference in identifying the nature
17 Among the most common definitions of mens rea is "criminal intent." Black's Law Dictionary 1137 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). That dictionary unsurprisingly defines "purpose" as synonymous with intent, id., at 1400, and "intent" as, among other things, "a state of mind," id., at 947. But we need not venture beyond New Jersey's own criminal code for a definition of purpose that makes it central to the description of a criminal offense. As the dissenting judge on the state appeals court pointed out, according to the New Jersey Criminal Code, "[a] person acts purposely with respect to the nature of his conduct or a result thereof if it is his conscious object
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