Cite as: 530 U. S. 466 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
of this finding that Apprendi was also required, in order to receive the sentence he did for weapons possession, to have possessed the weapon with a "purpose to use [the weapon] unlawfully against the person or property of another," § 2C:39-4(a). A second mens rea requirement hardly defeats the reality that the enhancement statute imposes of its own force an intent requirement necessary for the imposition of sentence. On the contrary, the fact that the language and structure of the "purpose to use" criminal offense is identical in relevant respects to the language and structure of the "purpose to intimidate" provision demonstrates to us that it is precisely a particular criminal mens rea that the hate crime enhancement statute seeks to target. The defendant's intent in committing a crime is perhaps as close as one might hope to come to a core criminal offense "element." 18
to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result." N. J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:2-2(b)(1) (West 1999). The hate crime statute's application to those who act "with a purpose to intimidate because of" certain status-based characteristics places it squarely within the inquiry whether it was a defendant's "conscious object" to intimidate for that reason.
18 Whatever the effect of the State Supreme Court's comment that the law here targets "motive," 159 N. J. 7, 20, 731 A. 2d 485, 492 (1999)—and it is highly doubtful that one could characterize that comment as a "binding" interpretation of the state statute, see Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U. S., at 483-484 (declining to be bound by state court's characterization of state law's "operative effect"), even if the court had not immediately thereafter called into direct question its "ability to view this finding as merely a search for motive," 159 N. J., at 21, 731 A. 2d, at 492—a State cannot through mere characterization change the nature of the conduct actually targeted. It is as clear as day that this hate crime law defines a particular kind of prohibited intent, and a particular intent is more often than not the sine qua non of a violation of a criminal law.
When the principal dissent at long last confronts the actual statute at issue in this case in the final few pages of its opinion, it offers in response to this interpretation only that our reading is contrary to "settled precedent" in Mitchell. Post, at 553. Setting aside the fact that Wisconsin's hate crime statute was, in text and substance, different from New Jersey's, Mitchell did not even begin to consider whether the Wisconsin hate crime
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