Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545, 19 (2002)

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Cite as: 536 U. S. 545 (2002)

Opinion of Kennedy, J.

tional principle first identified in Jones: "Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt." 530 U. S., at 490. Those facts, Apprendi held, were what the Framers had in mind when they spoke of "crimes" and "criminal prosecutions" in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments: A crime was not alleged, and a criminal prosecution not complete, unless the indictment and the jury verdict included all the facts to which the legislature had attached the maximum punishment. Any "fact that . . . exposes the criminal defendant to a penalty exceeding the maximum he would receive if punished according to the facts reflected in the jury verdict alone," the Court concluded, id., at 483, would have been, under the prevailing historical practice, an element of an aggravated offense. See id., at 479-481; see also id., at 501-518 (Thomas, J., concurring).

Apprendi's conclusions do not undermine McMillan's. There was no comparable historical practice of submitting facts increasing the mandatory minimum to the jury, so the Apprendi rule did not extend to those facts. Indeed, the Court made clear that its holding did not affect McMillan at all:

"We do not overrule McMillan. We limit its holding to cases that do not involve the imposition of a sentence more severe than the statutory maximum for the offense established by the jury's verdict—a limitation identified in the McMillan opinion itself." 530 U. S., at 487, n. 13.

The sentencing factor in McMillan did not increase "the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum," 530 U. S., at 490; nor did it, as the concurring opinions in Jones put it, "alter the congressionally prescribed range of penalties to which a criminal defendant is exposed," 526 U. S., at 253 (Scalia, J., concurring). As the Apprendi Court observed, the McMillan finding merely required the

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