Cite as: 536 U. S. 545 (2002)
Thomas, J., dissenting
This constitutional limitation neither interferes with the legislature's ability to define statutory ranges of punishment nor calls into question judicial discretion to impose "judgment within the range prescribed by statute." Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 481. But it does protect the criminal defend-ant's constitutional right to know, ex ante, those circumstances that will determine the applicable range of punishment and to have those circumstances proved beyond a reasonable doubt:
"If a defendant faces punishment beyond that provided by statute when an offense is committed under certain circumstances but not others, it is obvious that both the loss of liberty and the stigma attaching to the offense are heightened; it necessarily follows that the defendant should not—at the moment the State is put to proof of those circumstances—be deprived of protections that have, until that point, unquestionably attached." Id., at 484.
B
The Court truncates this protection and holds that "facts, sometimes referred to as sentencing factors," do not need to be "alleged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, or established beyond a reasonable doubt," ante, at 550, so long as they do not increase the penalty for the crime beyond the statutory maximum. This is so even if the fact alters the statutorily mandated sentencing range, by increasing the mandatory minimum sentence. But to say that is in effect to claim that the imposition of a 7-year, rather than a 5-year, mandatory minimum does not change the constitutionally relevant sentence range because, regardless, either sentence falls between five years and the statutory maximum of life, the longest sentence range available under the statute. This analysis is flawed precisely because the statute provides incremental sentencing ranges, in which the mandatory minimum sentence varies upward if a defendant "brandished" or "discharged" a weapon. As a matter of common sense, an
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