United States v. Booker; United States v. Fanfan

543 U.S. 220

Case Year: 2005

Case Ruling: 5-4; 5-4

Opinion Justice: Stevens in Part; Breyer in Part

FACTS

Freddie J. Booker was charged with possession with intent to distribute at least 50 grams of crack cocaine. Having heard evidence that he had 92.5 grams in his duffel bag, the jury found him guilty of violating 21 U.S.C. §841(a)(1). That statute prescribes a minimum sentence of ten years in prison and a maximum sentence of life for that offense.

Based upon Booker's criminal history and the quantity of drugs found by the jury, the federal sentencing guidelines required the district court judge to select a base" sentence of not less than 210 nor more than 262 months in prison. After a post-trial sentencing proceeding, the judge concluded that Booker had possessed an additional 566 grams of crack and that he was guilty of obstructing justice. Those findings mandated that the judge select a sentence between 360 months and life imprisonment; the judge imposed a sentence at the low end of the range. Thus, instead of the sentence of twenty-one years and ten months that the judge could have imposed on the basis of the facts proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt, Booker received a thirty-year sentence.

The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that this application of the sentencing guidelines conflicted with the Supreme Court's holding in Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) that "[o]ther 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."

Duncan Fanfan was charged with conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute at least five hundred grams of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. §846 841(a)(1). Under the guidelines, without additional findings of fact the maximum sentence authorized by the jury verdict was imprisonment for seventy-eight months.

The trial judge conducted a sentencing hearing at which he found additional facts that, under the guidelines, would have authorized a sentence in the 188 to 235 month range. Specifically, he found that respondent Fanfan was responsible for 2.5 kilograms of cocaine powder and 261.6 grams of crack. Under the guidelines, Fanfan should have received an enhanced sentence of fifteen or sixteen years instead of the five or six years authorized by the jury verdict alone. Relying on the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely v. Washington (2005), however, the judge concluded that he could not follow these particular provisions of the guidelines.

The U.S. government appealed, asking the Court to determine whether its Apprendi line of cases applies to the sentencing guidelines, and if so, what portions of the guidelines remain in effect.

In Justice Stevens's opinion, the Court addressed the first question: "Whether the Sixth Amendment is violated by the imposition of an enhanced sentence under the United States sentencing guidelines based on the sentencing judge's determination of a fact (other than a prior conviction) that was not found by the jury or admitted by the defendant." Justice Breyer's opinion addresses the extent to which the guidelines remain in effect.

 

JUSTICE STEVENS DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT IN PART.

The question presented in each of these cases is whether an application of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines violated the Sixth Amendment. In each case, the courts below held that binding rules set forth in the Guidelines limited the severity of the sentence that the judge could lawfully impose on the defendant based on the facts found by the jury at his trial. In both cases the courts rejected, on the basis of our decision in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. ___ (2004), the Government's recommended application of the Sentencing Guidelines because the proposed sentences were based on additional facts that the sentencing judge found by a preponderance of the evidence. We hold that both courts correctly concluded that the Sixth Amendment as construed in Blakely does apply to the Sentencing Guidelines. In a separate opinion authored by Justice Breyer, the Court concludes that in light of this holding, two provisions of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA) that have the effect of making the Guidelines mandatory must be invalidated in order to allow the statute to operate in a manner consistent with congressional intent....

It has been settled throughout our history that the Constitution protects every criminal defendant "against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged." It is equally clear that the "Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to demand that a jury find him guilty of all the elements of the crime with which he is charged." These basic precepts, firmly rooted in the common law, have provided the basis for recent decisions interpreting modern criminal statutes and sentencing procedures.

In Jones v. United States (1999), we considered the federal carjacking statute, which provides three different maximum sentences depending on the extent of harm to the victim: 15 years in jail if there was no serious injury to a victim, 25 years if there was "serious bodily injury," and life in prison if death resulted. In spite of the fact that the statute "at first glance has a look to it suggesting [that the provisions relating to the extent of harm to the victim] are only sentencing provisions," we concluded that the harm to the victim was an element of the crime. That conclusion was supported by the statutory text and structure, and was influenced by our desire to avoid the constitutional issues implicated by a contrary holding, which would have reduced the jury's role "to the relative importance of low-level gatekeeping." Foreshadowing the result we reach today, we noted that our holding was consistent with a "rule requiring jury determination of facts that raise a sentencing ceiling" in state and federal sentencing guidelines systems.

In Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000), the defendant pleaded guilty to second-degree possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, which carried a prison term of 5-to-10 years. Thereafter, the trial court found that his conduct had violated New Jersey's "hate crime" law because it was racially motivated, and imposed a 12-year sentence. This Court set aside the enhanced sentence. We held: "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."

The fact that New Jersey labeled the hate crime a "sentence enhancement" rather than a separate criminal act was irrelevant for constitutional purposes. As a matter of simple justice, it seemed obvious that the procedural safeguards designed to protect Apprendi from punishment for the possession of a firearm should apply equally to his violation of the hate crime statute. Merely using the label "sentence enhancement" to describe the latter did not provide a principled basis for treating the two crimes differently.

In Ring v. Arizona (2002), we reaffirmed our conclusion that the characterization of critical facts is constitutionally irrelevant. There, we held that it was impermissible for "the trial judge, sitting alone" to determine the presence or absence of the aggravating factors required by Arizona law for imposition of the death penalty.... Our opinion made it clear that ultimately, while the procedural error in Ring's case might have been harmless because the necessary finding was implicit in the jury's guilty verdict, "the characterization of a fact or circumstance as an 'element' or a 'sentencing factor' is not determinative of the question 'who decides,' judge or jury."

In Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. ___ (2004), we dealt with a determinate sentencing scheme similar to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. There the defendant pleaded guilty to kidnapping, a class B felony punishable by a term of not more than 10 years. Other provisions of Washington law, comparable to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, mandated a "standard" sentence of 49-to-53 months, unless the judge found aggravating facts justifying an exceptional sentence. Although the prosecutor recommended a sentence in the standard range, the judge found that the defendant had acted with "'deliberate cruelty'" and sentenced him to 90 months.

For reasons explained in Jones, Apprendi, and Ring, the requirements of the Sixth Amendment were clear. The application of Washington's sentencing scheme violated the defendant's right to have the jury find the existence of "'any particular fact'" that the law makes essential to his punishment. That right is implicated whenever a judge seeks to impose a sentence that is not solely based on "facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant."...

As the dissenting opinions in Blakely recognized, there is no distinction of constitutional significance between the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and the Washington procedures at issue in that case. This conclusion rests on the premise, common to both systems, that the relevant sentencing rules are mandatory and impose binding requirements on all sentencing judges.

If the Guidelines as currently written could be read as merely advisory provisions that recommended, rather than required, the selection of particular sentences in response to differing sets of facts, their use would not implicate the Sixth Amendment. We have never doubted the authority of a judge to exercise broad discretion in imposing a sentence within a statutory range. Indeed, everyone agrees that the constitutional issues presented by these cases would have been avoided entirely if Congress had omitted from the SRA the provisions that make the Guidelines binding on district judges; it is that circumstance that makes the Court's answer to the second question presented possible. For when a trial judge exercises his discretion to select a specific sentence within a defined range, the defendant has no right to a jury determination of the facts that the judge deems relevant.

The Guidelines as written, however, are not advisory; they are mandatory and binding on all judges. While subsection (a) of §3553 of the sentencing statute lists the Sentencing Guidelines as one factor to be considered in imposing a sentence, subsection (b) directs that the court " shall impose a sentence of the kind, and within the range" established by the Guidelines, subject to departures in specific, limited cases. Because they are binding on judges, we have consistently held that the Guidelines have the force and effect of laws.

The availability of a departure in specified circumstances does not avoid the constitutional issue, just as it did not in Blakelyitself. The Guidelines permit departures from the prescribed sentencing range in cases in which the judge "finds that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that described." At first glance, one might believe that the ability of a district judge to depart from the Guidelines means that she is bound only by the statutory maximum. Were this the case, there would be no Apprendi problem. Importantly, however, departures are not available in every case, and in fact are unavailable in most. In most cases, as a matter of law, the Commission will have adequately taken all relevant factors into account, and no departure will be legally permissible.

Booker's case illustrates the mandatory nature of the Guidelines. The jury convicted him of possessing at least 50 grams of crack based on evidence that he had 92.5 grams of crack in his duffel bag. Under these facts, the Guidelines specified an offense level of 32, which, given the defendant's criminal history category, authorized a sentence of 210-to-262 months. See USSG §2D1.1(c)(4). Booker's is a run-of-the-mill drug case, and does not present any factors that were inadequately considered by the Commission. The sentencing judge would therefore have been reversed had he not imposed a sentence within the level 32 Guidelines range.

Booker's actual sentence, however, was 360 months, almost 10 years longer than the Guidelines range supported by the jury verdict alone. To reach this sentence, the judge found facts beyond those found by the jury: namely, that Booker possessed 566 grams of crack in addition to the 92.5 grams in his duffel bag. The jury never heard any evidence of the additional drug quantity, and the judge found it true by a preponderance of the evidence. Thus, just as in Blakely, "the jury's verdict alone does not authorize the sentence. The judge acquires that authority only upon finding some additional fact." There is no relevant distinction between the sentence imposed pursuant to the Washington statutes in Blakely and the sentences imposed pursuant to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in these cases....

The Government advances three arguments in support of its submission that we should not apply our reasoning in Blakely to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. It contends that Blakely is distinguishable because the Guidelines were promulgated by a commission rather than the Legislature; that principles of stare decisis require us to follow four earlier decisions that are arguably inconsistent with Blakely; and that the application of Blakely to the Guidelines would conflict with separation of powers principles reflected in Mistretta v. United States (1989). These arguments are unpersuasive.

Commission vs. Legislature:

In our judgment the fact that the Guidelines were promulgated by the Sentencing Commission, rather than Congress, lacks constitutional significance. In order to impose the defendants' sentences under the Guidelines, the judges in these cases were required to find an additional fact, such as drug quantity, just as the judge found the additional fact of serious bodily injury to the victim in Jones. As far as the defendants are concerned, they face significantly higher sentences--in Booker's case almost 10 years higher--because a judge found true by a preponderance of the evidence a fact that was never submitted to the jury. Regardless of whether Congress or a Sentencing Commission concluded that a particular fact must be proved in order to sentence a defendant within a particular range, "[t]he Framers would not have thought it too much to demand that, before depriving a man of [ten] more years of his liberty, the State should suffer the modest inconvenience of submitting its accusation to 'the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbours,' rather than a lone employee of the State."...

Stare Decisis:

The Government next argues that [previous] cases preclude our application of Blakely to the Sentencing Guidelines. We disagree....

None of our prior cases is inconsistent with today's decision. Stare decisis does not compel us to limit Blakely's holding.

Separation of Powers:

Finally, the Government and, to a lesser extent, Justice Breyer's dissent, argue that any holding that would require Guidelines sentencing factors to be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt would effectively transform them into a code defining elements of criminal offenses. The result, according to the Government, would be an unconstitutional grant to the Sentencing Commission of the inherently legislative power to define criminal elements.

There is no merit to this argument because the Commission's authority to identify the facts relevant to sentencing decisions and to determine the impact of such facts on federal sentences is precisely the same whether one labels such facts "sentencing factors" or "elements" of crimes. Our decision in Mistretta, 488 U.S., at 371, upholding the validity of the delegation of that authority, is unaffected by the characterization of such facts, or by the procedures used to find such facts in particular sentencing proceedings....

Our holding today does not call into question any aspect of our decision in Mistretta. That decision was premised on an understanding that the Commission, rather than performing adjudicatory functions, instead makes political and substantive decisions....

All of the foregoing support our conclusion that our holding in Blakely applies to the Sentencing Guidelines. We recognize, as we did in Jones, Apprendi, and Blakely, that in some cases jury factfinding may impair the most expedient and efficient sentencing of defendants. But the interest in fairness and reliability protected by the right to a jury trial--a common-law right that defendants enjoyed for centuries and that is now enshrined in the Sixth Amendment--has always outweighed the interest in concluding trials swiftly....

Accordingly, we reaffirm our holding in Apprendi: Any fact (other than a prior conviction) which is necessary to support a sentence exceeding the maximum authorized by the facts established by a plea of guilty or a jury verdict must be admitted by the defendant or proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

JUSTICE BREYER DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT IN PART.

The first question that the Government has presented in these cases is the following:

"Whether the Sixth Amendment is violated by the imposition of an enhanced sentence under the United States Sentencing Guidelines based on the sentencing judge's determination of a fact (other than a prior conviction) that was not found by the jury or admitted by the defendant."

The Court, in an opinion by Justice Stevens, answers this question in the affirmative. Applying its decisions in Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000), and Blakely v. Washington (2004), to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the Court holds that, in the circumstances mentioned, the Sixth Amendment requires juries, not judges, to find facts relevant to sentencing.

We here turn to the second question presented, a question that concerns the remedy. We must decide whether or to what extent, "as a matter of severability analysis," the Guidelines "as a whole" are "inapplicable ... such that the sentencing court must exercise its discretion to sentence the defendant within the maximum and minimum set by statute for the offense of conviction."

We answer the question of remedy by finding the provision of the federal sentencing statute that makes the Guidelines mandatory, incompatible with today's constitutional holding. We conclude that this provision must be severed and excised, as must one other statutory section, which depends upon the Guidelines' mandatory nature. So modified, the Federal Sentencing Act makes the Guidelines effectively advisory. It requires a sentencing court to consider Guidelines ranges, but it permits the court to tailor the sentence in light of other statutory concerns as well....

One approach, that of Justice Stevens' dissent, would retain the Sentencing Act (and the Guidelines) as written, but would engraft onto the existing system today's Sixth Amendment "jury trial" requirement. The addition would change the Guidelines by preventing the sentencing court from increasing a sentence on the basis of a fact that the jury did not find (or that the offender did not admit).

The other approach, which we now adopt, would (through severance and excision of two provisions) make the Guidelines system advisory while maintaining a strong connection between the sentence imposed and the offender's real conduct--a connection important to the increased uniformity of sentencing that Congress intended its Guidelines system to achieve.

Both approaches would significantly alter the system that Congress designed. But today's constitutional holding means that it is no longer possible to maintain the judicial factfinding that Congress thought would underpin the mandatory Guidelines system that it sought to create and that Congress wrote into the Act. Hence we must decide whether we would deviate less radically from Congress' intended system (1) by superimposing the constitutional requirement announced today or (2) through elimination of some provisions of the statute....

Several considerations convince us that, were the Court's constitutional requirement added onto the Sentencing Act as currently written, the requirement would so transform the scheme that Congress created that Congress likely would not have intended the Act as so modified to stand. First, the statute's text states that "[t]he court" when sentencing will consider "the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant." In context, the words "the court" mean "the judge without the jury," not "the judge working together with the jury." A further statutory provision, by removing typical "jury trial" evidentiary limitations, makes this clear. The Act's history confirms it.

This provision is tied to the provision of the Act that makes the Guidelines mandatory. They are part and parcel of a single, unified whole--a whole that Congress intended to apply to all federal sentencing.

This provision makes it difficult to justify Justice Stevens' approach, for that approach requires reading the words "the court" as if they meant "the judge working together with the jury." Unlike Justice Stevens, we do not believe we can interpret the statute's language to save its constitutionality, because we believe that any such reinterpretation, even if limited to instances in which a Sixth Amendment problem arises, would be "plainly contrary to the intent of Congress." Without some such reinterpretation, however, this provision of the statute, along with those inextricably connected to it, are constitutionally invalid, and fall outside of Congress' power to enact....

Second, Congress' basic statutory goal--a system that diminishes sentencing disparity--depends for its success upon judicial efforts to determine, and to base punishment upon, the real conduct that underlies the crime of conviction. That determination is particularly important in the federal system where crimes defined as, for example, "obstruct[ing], delay[ing], or affect[ing] commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by ... extortion," or, say, using the mail "for the purpose of executing" a "scheme or artifice to defraud," can encompass a vast range of very different kinds of underlying conduct. But it is also important even in respect to ordinary crimes, such as robbery, where an act that meets the statutory definition can be committed in a host of different ways. Judges have long looked to real conduct when sentencing. Federal judges have long relied upon a presentence report, prepared by a probation officer, for information (often unavailable until after the trial) relevant to the manner in which the convicted offender committed the crime of conviction.

Congress expected this system to continue. That is why it specifically inserted into the Act the provision cited above, which (recodifying prior law) says that

"[n]o limitation shall be placed on the information concerning the background, character, and conduct of a person convicted of an offense which a court of the United States may receive and consider for the purpose of imposing an appropriate sentence."...

The Sentencing Guidelines also assume that Congress intended this system to continue. That is why, among other things, they permit a judge to reject a plea-bargained sentence if he determines, after reviewing the presentence report, that the sentence does not adequately reflect the seriousness of the defendant's actual conduct.

To engraft the Court's constitutional requirement onto the sentencing statutes, however, would destroy the system. It would prevent a judge from relying upon a presentence report for factual information, relevant to sentencing, uncovered after the trial. In doing so, it would, even compared to pre-Guidelines sentencing, weaken the tie between a sentence and an offender's real conduct. It would thereby undermine the sentencing statute's basic aim of ensuring similar sentences for those who have committed similar crimes in similar ways....

Third, the sentencing statutes, read to include the Court's Sixth Amendment requirement, would create a system far more complex than Congress could have intended. How would courts and counsel work with an indictment and a jury trial that involved not just whether a defendant robbed a bank but also how? Would the indictment have to allege, in addition to the elements of robbery, whether the defendant possessed a firearm, whether he brandished or discharged it, whether he threatened death, whether he caused bodily injury, whether any such injury was ordinary, serious, permanent or life threatening, whether he abducted or physically restrained anyone, whether any victim was unusually vulnerable, how much money was taken, and whether he was an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor in a robbery gang? If so, how could a defendant mount a defense against some or all such specific claims should he also try simultaneously to maintain that the Government's evidence failed to place him at the scene of the crime? Would the indictment in a mail fraud case have to allege the number of victims, their vulnerability, and the amount taken from each? How could a judge expect a jury to work with the Guidelines' definitions of, say, "relevant conduct," which includes "all acts and omissions committed, aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, procured, or willfully caused by the defendant; and [in the case of a conspiracy] all reasonably foreseeable acts and omissions of others in furtherance of the jointly undertaken criminal activity"? How would a jury measure "loss" in a securities fraud case--a matter so complex as to lead the Commission to instruct judges to make "only ... a reasonable estimate"? How would the court take account, for punishment purposes, of a defendant's contemptuous behavior at trial--a matter that the Government could not have charged in the indictment?

Fourth, plea bargaining would not significantly diminish the consequences of the Court's constitutional holding for the operation of the Guidelines. Rather, plea bargaining would make matters worse. Congress enacted the sentencing statutes in major part to achieve greater uniformity in sentencing, i.e. , to increase the likelihood that offenders who engage in similar real conduct would receive similar sentences. The statutes reasonably assume that their efforts to move the trial-based sentencing process in the direction of greater sentencing uniformity would have a similar positive impact upon plea-bargained sentences, for plea bargaining takes place in the shadow of ( i.e., with an eye towards the hypothetical result of) a potential trial....

The Court's constitutional jury trial requirement, however, if patched onto the present Sentencing Act, would move the system backwards in respect both to tried and to plea-bargained cases. In respect to tried cases, it would effectively deprive the judge of the ability to use post-verdict-acquired real-conduct information; it would prohibit the judge from basing a sentence upon any conduct other than the conduct the prosecutor chose to charge; and it would put a defendant to a set of difficult strategic choices as to which prosecutorial claims he would contest. The sentence that would emerge in a case tried under such a system would likely reflect real conduct less completely, less accurately, and less often than did a pre-Guidelines, as well as a Guidelines, trial....

Fifth, Congress would not have enacted sentencing statutes that make it more difficult to adjust sentences upward than to adjust them downward. As several United States Senators have written in an amicus brief, "the Congress that enacted the 1984 Act did not conceive of--much less establish--a sentencing guidelines system in which sentencing judges were free to consider facts or circumstances not found by a jury or admitted in a plea agreement for the purpose of adjusting a base-offense level down, but not up, within the applicable guidelines range. Such a one-way lever would be grossly at odds with Congress's intent." Yet that is the system that the dissenters' remedy would create.

For all these reasons, Congress, had it been faced with the constitutional jury trial requirement, likely would not have passed the same Sentencing Act. It likely would have found the requirement incompatible with the Act as written. Hence the Act cannot remain valid in its entirety. Severance and excision are necessary.

We now turn to the question of which portions of the sentencing statute we must sever and excise as inconsistent with the Court's constitutional requirement. Although, as we have explained, we believe that Congress would have preferred the total invalidation of the statute to the dissenters' remedial approach, we nevertheless do not believe that the entire statute must be invalidated. Most of the statute is perfectly valid. And we must "refrain from invalidating more of the statute than is necessary." Indeed, we must retain those portions of the Act that are (1) constitutionally valid, (2) capable of "functioning independently," and (3) consistent with Congress' basic objectives in enacting the statute.

Application of these criteria indicates that we must sever and excise two specific statutory provisions: the provision that requires sentencing courts to impose a sentence within the applicable Guidelines range (in the absence of circumstances that justify a departure), and the provision that sets forth standards of review on appeal, including de novo review of departures from the applicable Guidelines range. With these two sections excised (and statutory cross-references to the two sections consequently invalidated), the remainder of the Act satisfies the Court's constitutional requirements....

We do not doubt that Congress, when it wrote the Sentencing Act, intended to create a form of mandatory Guidelines system. But, we repeat, given today's constitutional holding, that is not a choice that remains open. Hence we have examined the statute in depth to determine Congress' likely intent in light of today's holding. And we have concluded that today's holding is fundamentally inconsistent with the judge-based sentencing system that Congress enacted into law. In our view, it is more consistent with Congress' likely intent in enacting the Sentencing Reform Act (1) to preserve important elements of that system while severing and excising two provisions than (2) to maintain all provisions of the Act and engraft today's constitutional requirement onto that statutory scheme.

Ours, of course, is not the last word: The ball now lies in Congress' court. The National Legislature is equipped to devise and install, long-term, the sentencing system, compatible with the Constitution, that Congress judges best for the federal system of justice....

In respondent Booker's case, the District Court applied the Guidelines as written and imposed a sentence higher than the maximum authorized solely by the jury's verdict. The Court of Appeals held Blakely applicable to the Guidelines, concluded that Booker's sentence violated the Sixth Amendment, vacated the judgment of the District Court, and remanded for resentencing. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case. On remand, the District Court should impose a sentence in accordance with today's opinions, and, if the sentence comes before the Court of Appeals for review, the Court of Appeals should apply the review standards set forth in this opinion.

In respondent Fanfan's case, the District Court held Blakely applicable to the Guidelines. It then imposed a sentence that was authorized by the jury's verdict--a sentence lower than the sentence authorized by the Guidelines as written. Thus, Fanfan's sentence does not violate the Sixth Amendment. Nonetheless, the Government (and the defendant should he so choose) may seek resentencing under the system set forth in today's opinions. Hence we vacate the judgment of the District Court and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

As these dispositions indicate, we must apply today's holdings--both the Sixth Amendment holding and our remedial interpretation of the Sentencing Act--to all cases on direct review. That fact does not mean that we believe that every sentence gives rise to a Sixth Amendment violation. Nor do we believe that every appeal will lead to a new sentencing hearing. That is because we expect reviewing courts to apply ordinary prudential doctrines, determining, for example, whether the issue was raised below and whether it fails the "plain-error" test. It is also because, in cases not involving a Sixth Amendment violation, whether resentencing is warranted or whether it will instead be sufficient to review a sentence for reasonableness may depend upon application of the harmless-error doctrine.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE STEVENS, WITH WHOM JUSTICE SOUTER JOINS, AND WITH WHOM JUSTICE SCALIA JOINS ... DISSENTING IN PART.

Neither of the two Court opinions that decide these cases finds any constitutional infirmity inherent in any provision of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA) or the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.... Neither the Government, nor the respondents, nor any of the numerous amici has suggested that there is any need to invalidate either provision in order to avoid violations of the Sixth Amendment in the administration of the Guidelines. The Court's decision to do so represents a policy choice that Congress has considered and decisively rejected. While it is perfectly clear that Congress has ample power to repeal these two statutory provisions if it so desires, this Court should not make that choice on Congress' behalf. I respectfully dissent from the Court's extraordinary exercise of authority.

Before explaining why the law does not authorize the Court's creative remedy, why the reasons it advances in support of its decision are unpersuasive, and why it is abundantly clear that Congress has already rejected that very remedy, it is appropriate to explain how the violation of the Sixth Amendment that occurred in Booker's case could readily have been avoided without making any change in the Guidelines. Booker received a sentence of 360 months' imprisonment. His sentence was based on four factual determinations: (1) the jury's finding that he possessed 92.5 grams of crack (cocaine base); (2) the judge's finding that he possessed an additional 566 grams; (3) the judge's conclusion that he had obstructed justice; and (4) the judge's evaluation of his prior criminal record. Under the jury's 92.5 grams finding, the maximum sentence authorized by the Guidelines was a term of 262 months.

If the 566 gram finding had been made by the jury based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that finding would have authorized a guidelines sentence anywhere between 324 and 405 months--the equivalent of a range from 27 to nearly 34 years--given Booker's criminal history. Relying on his own appraisal of the defendant's obstruction of justice, and presumably any other information in the presentence report, the judge would have had discretion to select any sentence within that range. Thus, if the two facts, which in this case actually established two separate crimes, had both been found by the jury, the judicial factfinding that produced the actual sentence would not have violated the Constitution. In other words, the judge could have considered Booker's obstruction of justice, his criminal history, and all other real offense and offender factors without violating the Sixth Amendment. Because the Guidelines as written possess the virtue of combining a mandatory determination of sentencing ranges and discretionary decisions within those ranges, they allow ample latitude for judicial factfinding that does not even arguably raise any Sixth Amendment issue.

The principal basis for the Court's chosen remedy is its assumption that Congress did not contemplate that the Sixth Amendment would be violated by depriving the defendant of the right to a jury trial on a factual issue as important as whether Booker possessed the additional 566 grams of crack that exponentially increased the maximum sentence that he could receive. I am not at all sure that that assumption is correct, but even if it is, it does not provide an adequate basis for volunteering a systemwide remedy that Congress has already rejected and could enact on its own if it elected to.

When one pauses to note that over 95% of all federal criminal prosecutions are terminated by a plea bargain, and the further fact that in almost half of the cases that go to trial there are no sentencing enhancements, the extraordinary overbreadth of the Court's unprecedented remedy is manifest. It is, moreover, unique because, under the Court's reasoning, if Congress should decide to reenact the exact text of the two provisions that the Court has chosen to invalidate, that reenactment would be unquestionably constitutional. In my judgment, it is therefore clear that the Court's creative remedy is an exercise of legislative, rather than judicial, power....

Rather than engage in a wholesale rewriting of the SRA, I would simply allow the Government to continue doing what it has done since this Court handed down Blakely--prove any fact that is required to increase a defendant's sentence under the Guidelines to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.... [A] requirement of jury factfinding for certain issues can be implemented without difficulty in the vast majority of cases.

Indeed, this already appears to be the case. "[T]he Department of Justice already has instituted procedures which would protect the overwhelming majority of future cases from Blakely infirmity. The Department of Justice has issued detailed guidance for every stage of the prosecution from indictment to final sentencing, including alleging facts that would support sentencing enhancements and requiring defendants to waive any potential Blakely rights in plea agreements." Given this experience, I think the Court dramatically overstates the difficulty of implementing this solution....

JUSTICE BREYER, WITH WHOM THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE O'CONNOR, AND JUSTICE KENNEDY JOIN, DISSENTING IN PART.

The Court today applies its decisions in Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000), and Blakely v. Washington (2004), to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The Court holds that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find sentencing facts--facts about the way in which an offender committed the crime--where those facts would move an offender from lower to higher Guidelines ranges. I disagree with the Court's conclusion. I find nothing in the Sixth Amendment that forbids a sentencing judge to determine (as judges at sentencing have traditionally determined) the manner or way in which the offender carried out the crime of which he was convicted....

The Chief Justice, Justice O'Connor, Justice Kennedy, and I have previously explained at length why we cannot accept the Court's constitutional analysis....

For one thing, we have found the Court's historical argument unpersuasive. Indeed, the Court's opinion today illustrates the historical mistake upon which its conclusions rest. The Court reiterates its view that the right of "'trial by jury has been understood to require'" a jury trial for determination of "' the truth of every accusation.'" This claim makes historical sense insofar as an " accusation" encompasses each factual element of the crime of which a defendant is accused. But the key question here is whether that word also encompasses sentencing facts--facts about the offender (say, recidivism) or about the way in which the offender committed the crime (say, the seriousness of the injury or the amount stolen) that help a sentencing judge determine a convicted offender's specific sentence.

History does not support a "right to jury trial" in respect to sentencing facts. Traditionally, the law has distinguished between facts that are elements of crimes and facts that are relevant only to sentencing. Traditionally, federal law has looked to judges, not to juries, to resolve disputes about sentencing facts. Traditionally, those familiar with the criminal justice system have found separate, postconviction judge-run sentencing procedures sensible given the difficulty of obtaining relevant sentencing information before the moment of conviction. They have found those proceedings practical given the impracticality of the alternatives, say, two-stage (guilt, sentence) jury procedures. And, despite the absence of jury determinations, they have found those proceedings fair as long as the convicted offender has the opportunity to contest a claimed fact before the judge, and as long as the sentence falls within the maximum of the range that a congressional statute specifically sets forth.

The administrative rules at issue here, Federal Sentencing Guidelines, focus on sentencing facts. They circumscribe a federal judge's sentencing discretion in respect to such facts, but in doing so, they do not change the nature of those facts. The sentencing courts continue to use those facts, not to convict a person of a crime as a statute defines it, but to help determine an appropriate punishment. Thus, the Court cannot ground today's holding in a "constitutional tradition assimilated from the common law" or in "the Magna Carta." It cannot look to the Framers for support, for they, too, enacted criminal statutes with indeterminate sentences, revealing their own understanding and acceptance of the judge's factfinding role at sentencing.

Indeed, it is difficult for the Court to find historical support other than in two recent cases, Apprendi and Blakely--cases that we, like lower courts, read not as confirming, but as confounding a pre- Apprendi, pre- Blakely legal tradition that stretches back a century or more.

For another thing, applied in the federal context of mandatory guidelines, the Court's Sixth Amendment decision would risk unwieldy trials, a two-tier jury system, a return to judicial sentencing discretion, or the replacement of sentencing ranges with specific mandatory sentences. The decision would pose a serious obstacle to congressional efforts to create a sentencing law that would mandate more similar treatment of like offenders, that would thereby diminish sentencing disparity, and that would consequently help to overcome irrational discrimination (including racial discrimination) in sentencing. These consequences would seem perverse when viewed through the lens of a Constitution that seeks a fair criminal process.

The upshot is that the Court's Sixth Amendment decisions-- Apprendi, Blakely, and today's--deprive Congress and state legislatures of authority that is constitutionally theirs. The "sentencing function long has been a peculiarly shared responsibility among the Branches of Government." Congress' share of this joint responsibility has long included not only the power to define crimes (by enacting statutes setting forth their factual elements) but also the power to specify sentences, whether by setting forth a range of individual-crime-related sentences (say, 0 to 10 years' imprisonment for bank robbery) or by identifying sentencing factors that permit or require a judge to impose higher or lower sentences in particular circumstances....

Although the considerations just mentioned did not dissuade the Court from its holdings in Apprendi and Blakely, I should have hoped they would have dissuaded the Court from extending those holdings to the statute and Guidelines at issue here. Legal logic does not require that extension, for there are key differences.

First, the Federal Guidelines are not statutes. The rules they set forth are administrative, not statutory, in nature. Members, not of Congress, but of a Judicial Branch Commission, wrote those rules. The rules do not "establis[h] minimum and maximum penalties" for individual crimes, but guide sentencing courts, only to a degree, "fetter[ing] the discretion of sentencing judges to do what they have done for generations--impose sentences within the broad limits established by Congress."... The rules do not create a new set of legislatively determined sentences so much as they reflect, organize, rationalize, and modify an old set of judicially determined pre-Guidelines sentences. Thus, the rules do not, in Apprendi's words, set forth a "prescribed statutory maximum," as the law has traditionally understood that phrase....

Second, the sentencing statutes at issue in Blakely imposed absolute constraints on a judge's sentencing discretion, while the federal sentencing statutes here at issue do not. As the Blakely Court emphasized, the Washington statutes authorized a higher-than-standard sentence on the basis of a factual finding only if the fact in question was a new fact-- i.e. , a fact that did not constitute an element of the crime of conviction or an element of any more serious or additional crime. A judge applying those statutes could not even consider, much less impose, an exceptional sentence, unless he found facts "'other than those which are used in computing the standard range sentence for the offense.'"

The federal sentencing statutes, however, offer a defendant no such fact-related assurance. As long as "there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission," they permit a judge to depart from a Guidelines sentence based on facts that constitute elements of the crime (say, a bank robbery involving a threat to use a weapon, where the weapon in question is nerve gas). Whether departure-triggering circumstances exist in a particular case is a matter for a court, not for Congress, to decide.

Thus, as far as the federal statutes are concerned, the federal system, unlike the state system at issue in Blakely, provides a defendant with no guarantee that the jury's finding of factual elements will result in a sentence lower than the statutory maximum. Rather, the statutes put a potential federal defendant on notice that a judge conceivably might sentence him anywhere within the range provided by statute--regardless of the applicable Guidelines range. Hence as a practical matter, they grant a potential federal defendant less assurance of a lower Guidelines sentence than did the state statutes at issue inBlakely.

These differences distinguish these cases from Apprendi and Blakely. They offer a principled basis for refusing to extendApprendi's rule to these cases....