Cite as: 536 U. S. 545 (2002)
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
proved to the jury. See King & Klein, Essential Elements, 54 Vand. L. Rev. 1467, 1474-1477 (2001). Indeed, though there is no clear record of how history treated these facts, it is clear that they did not fall within the principle by which history determined what facts were elements. That principle defined elements as "fact[s] . . . legally essential to the punishment to be inflicted." United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214, 232 (1876) (Clifford, J., dissenting) (citing 1 J. Bishop, Law of Criminal Procedure § 81, p. 51 (2d ed. 1872)). This formulation includes facts that, as McMillan put it, "alte[r] the maximum penalty," 477 U. S., at 87, but it does not include facts triggering a mandatory minimum. The minimum may be imposed with or without the factual finding; the finding is by definition not "essential" to the defendant's punishment.
McMillan was on firm historical ground, then, when it held that a legislature may specify the condition for a mandatory minimum without making the condition an element of the crime. The fact of visible firearm possession was more like the facts considered by judges when selecting a sentence within the statutory range—facts that, as the authorities from the 19th century confirm, have never been charged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, or proved beyond a reasonable doubt:
"[W]ithin the limits of any discretion as to the punishment which the law may have allowed, the judge, when he pronounces sentence, may suffer his discretion to be influenced by matter shown in aggravation or mitigation, not covered by the allegations of the indictment. Where the law permits the heaviest punishment, on a scale laid down, to be inflicted, and has merely committed to the judge the authority to interpose its mercy and inflict a punishment of a lighter grade, no rights of the accused are violated though in the indictment there is no mention of mitigating circumstances. The aggravating circumstances spoken of cannot swell the penalty
561
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