Majority opinion
The statute at issue. The statute that defines the crime under which Almendarez-Torres was convicted reads:
§ 1326. Reentry of deported alien; criminal penalties for reentry of certain deported aliens.
(a) Subject to subsection (b) of this section, any alien who— (1) has been... deported... and thereafter (2) enters... or at any time is found in the United States [without the consent of the Attorney General], shall be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
(b) Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, in the case of any alien described in such subsection— (1) whose deportation was subsequent to a conviction for commission of [certain misdemeanors] or a felony [other than an aggravated felony], such alien shall be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 10 years or both, or
(2) whose deportation was subsequent to a conviction for an aggravated felony, such alien shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
The Court had to decide whether subsection (b)(2), the provision that allowed the district court to impose the 85-month sentence in this case, was a separate crime or merely a penalty provision. If it defined a separate crime, then the Government's failure to include it in the indictment meant that the conviction and sentence had to be set aside. If it merely defined a penalty provision, then the conviction and sentence could stand.
Subsection (b)(2) is a penalty provision. According to the Court, it was "reasonably clear" that subsection (b)(2) defines a penalty provision. First, the provision entailed recidivism, which "is as typical a sentencing factor as one might imagine." Recidivism provisions had almost always been interpreted as penalty enhancements, not separate crimes. Second, Congress usually uses the words at the beginning of subsection (a), "subject to subsection (b)," and at the beginning of subsection (b), "notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section," to define heightened penalty provisions, not separate crimes. Finally, forcing the government to prove at trial that the defendant had previously been convicted of a crime risks making trials inherently unfair insofar as the jury, faced with such evidence, would be more inclined to convict the defendant on the basis of those prior convictions alone rather than the evidence that he is guilty of the presently charged crime.
The recidivism exception to the Sixth Amendment. The Court also held that the Sixth Amendment does not require courts to treat recidivism as an element of the crime irrespective of the intent of Congress. True, the Court had held that all "elements" of the crime must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but it had also held that the state could place the burden of proving some sentencing factors on the defendant. But recidivism was not like an element of a crime, or most other sentencing factors, because it could neither be presumed nor proved. Indeed, recidivism is one of the oldest and most common reasons for enhancing a criminal's punishment. Because of this historical pedigree, the Court could not find support in its modern precedents for the idea that it must be proved by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt. True, a few states had such a requirement on their own, but those states had never rested this requirement on a federal constitutional guarantee. Nor does the fact that the increased punishment available is significant by itself trigger a constitutional requirement that it be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law to describe an offense that resulted in the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods, to which additional punishments, including capital punishment, could be added; other crimes were called misdemeanors. Following conviction of a felony in a court of law, a person may be described as a felon or a convicted felon.
Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision with regard to aggravating factors in crimes. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibited judges from enhancing criminal sentences beyond statutory maxima based on facts other than those decided by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The decision has been a cornerstone in the modern resurgence in jury trial rights. As Justice Scalia noted in his concurring opinion, the jury-trial right "has never been efficient; but it has always been free."
Gregg v. Georgia, Proffitt v. Florida, Jurek v. Texas, Woodson v. North Carolina, and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. It reaffirmed the Court's acceptance of the use of the death penalty in the United States, upholding, in particular, the death sentence imposed on Troy Leon Gregg. The set of cases is referred to by a leading scholar as the July 2 Cases, and elsewhere referred to by the lead case Gregg. The court set forth the two main features that capital sentencing procedures must employ in order to comply with the Eighth Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishments". The decision essentially ended the de facto moratorium on the death penalty imposed by the Court in its 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia (1972). Justice Brennan's dissent famously argued that "The calculated killing of a human being by the State involves, by its very nature, a denial of the executed person's humanity ... An executed person has indeed 'lost the right to have rights.'"
The United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines are rules published by the U.S. Sentencing Commission that set out a uniform policy for sentencing individuals and organizations convicted of felonies and serious misdemeanors in the United States federal courts system. The Guidelines do not apply to less serious misdemeanors or infractions.
Capital murder refers to a category of murder in some parts of the US for which the perpetrator is eligible for the death penalty. In its original sense, capital murder was a statutory offence of aggravated murder in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland, which was later adopted as a legal provision to define certain forms of aggravated murder in the United States. Some jurisdictions that provide for death as a possible punishment for murder, such as California, do not have a specific statute creating or defining a crime known as capital murder; instead, death is one of the possible sentences for certain kinds of murder. In these cases, "capital murder" is not a phrase used in the legal system but may still be used by others such as the media.
United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court decision on criminal sentencing. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial requires that other than a prior conviction, only facts admitted by a defendant or proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury may be used to calculate a sentence exceeding the prescribed statutory maximum sentence, whether the defendant has pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial. The maximum sentence that a judge may impose is based upon the facts admitted by the defendant or proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 made major changes to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). IIRIRA's changes became effective on April 1, 1997.
In criminal law, strict liability is liability for which mens rea does not have to be proven in relation to one or more elements comprising the actus reus although intention, recklessness or knowledge may be required in relation to other elements of the offense. The liability is said to be strict because defendants could be convicted even though they were genuinely ignorant of one or more factors that made their acts or omissions criminal. The defendants may therefore not be culpable in any real way, i.e. there is not even criminal negligence, the least blameworthy level of mens rea.
Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case that upheld two important aspects of the capital sentencing scheme in Arizona—judicial sentencing and the aggravating factor "especially heinous, cruel, or depraved"—as not unconstitutionally vague. The Court overruled the first of these holdings in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002). The second of these holdings has yet to be overturned.
Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S. 1 (2004), held that aliens may not be deported after being convicted of DUI if the DUI statute that defines the offense does not contain a mens rea element or otherwise allows a conviction for merely negligent conduct.
Lopez v. Gonzales, 549 U.S. 47 (2006), held that an "aggravated felony" includes only conduct punishable as a felony under the federal Controlled Substances Act, regardless of whether state law classifies such conduct as a felony or a misdemeanor. Under federal law, there are two main consequences of having a prior conviction for an "aggravated felony." One is that, if the convicted person is an alien, he will be deported. The other is that, with respect to certain federal crimes, a prior conviction for an aggravated felony provides a sentencing enhancement. In this case, Lopez had been convicted of conduct that was a felony under South Dakota law but was a misdemeanor under federal law. Accordingly, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this conviction could not serve as a basis for deporting him.
The term aggravated felony was used in the United States immigration law to refer to a broad category of criminal offenses that carry certain severe consequences for aliens seeking asylum, legal permanent resident status, citizenship, or avoidance of deportation proceedings. Anyone convicted of an aggravated felony and removed from the United States "must remain outside of the United States for twenty consecutive years from the deportation date before he or she is eligible to re-enter the United States." The supreme court ruled 5-4 in Sessions v. Dimaya that the residual clause was unconstitutionally vague limiting the term.
Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227 (1999), is a United States Supreme Court case interpreting the federal carjacking statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2119, to set forth three distinct crimes, each with distinct elements. The Court drew this conclusion from the structure of the statute, under which two subsections provided for additional punishment if the defendant inflicts more serious harm. The Court also distinguished Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), because that case allowed for sentencing enhancement based on a prior conviction.
United States criminal procedure derives from several sources of law: the baseline protections of the United States Constitution; federal and state statutes; federal and state rules of criminal procedure ; and state and federal case law. Criminal procedures are distinct from civil procedures in the US.
Burglary is a statutory offence in England and Wales.
In the United States, the law for murder varies by jurisdiction. In many US jurisdictions there is a hierarchy of acts, known collectively as homicide, of which first-degree murder and felony murder are the most serious, followed by second-degree murder and, in a few states, third-degree murder, which in other states is divided into voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter such as reckless homicide and negligent homicide, which are the least serious, and ending finally in justifiable homicide, which is not a crime. However, because there are at least 52 relevant jurisdictions, each with its own criminal code, this is a considerable simplification.
The United States Constitution contains several provisions regarding the law of criminal procedure.
The United States Constitution contains several provisions related to criminal sentencing.
Luna Torres v. Lynch, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided the interpretation of section 1101(a)(43) of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which includes "aggravated felony" as a possible reason for deporting a non-citizen. The INA specifies certain offenses described in the federal criminal code as qualifying as an aggravated felony. The question before the court was if the plaintiff Jorge Luna Torres, who had been convicted under a state arson statute mostly identical to the federal statute but lacking an interstate or foreign commerce element in the federal law, fell under this definition of aggravated felony. The Court affirmed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit original decision: the difference was merely "jurisdictional", and Torres still qualified for the accelerated deportation process described under the INA.
Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. 148 (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 16(b), a statute defining certain "aggravated felonies" for immigration purposes, is unconstitutionally vague. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) classifies some categories of crimes as "aggravated felonies", and immigrants convicted of those crimes, including those legally present in the United States, are almost certain to be deported. Those categories include "crimes of violence", which are defined by the "elements clause" and the "residual clause". The Court struck down the "residual clause", which classified every felony that, "by its nature, involves a substantial risk" of "physical force against the person or property" as an aggravated felony.
