524
O'Connor, J., dissenting
plain the origins, contours, or consequences of its purported constitutional principle; for the inconsistency of that principle with our prior cases; and for the serious doubt that the holding cast on sentencing systems employed by the Federal Government and States alike. Id., at 254, 264-272 (dissenting opinion). Today, in what will surely be remembered as a watershed change in constitutional law, the Court imposes as a constitutional rule the principle it first identified in Jones.
I
Our Court has long recognized that not every fact that bears on a defendant's punishment need be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proved by the government beyond a reasonable doubt. Rather, we have held that the "legislature's definition of the elements of the offense is usually dispositive." McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79, 85 (1986); see also Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224, 228 (1998); Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 210, 211, n. 12 (1977). Although we have recognized that "there are obviously constitutional limits beyond which the States may not go in this regard," id., at 210, and that "in certain limited circumstances Winship's reasonable-doubt requirement applies to facts not formally identified as elements of the offense charged," McMillan, supra, at 86, we have proceeded with caution before deciding that a certain fact must be treated as an offense element despite the legislature's choice not to characterize it as such. We have therefore declined to establish any bright-line rule for making such judgments and have instead approached each case individually, sifting through the considerations most relevant to determining whether the legislature has acted properly within its broad power to define crimes and their punishments or instead has sought to evade the constitutional requirements associated with the characterization of a fact as an offense element. See, e. g., Monge v. California, 524 U. S. 721, 728-729 (1998); McMillan, supra, at 86.
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