Page:United States Reports, Volume 542.djvu/335

296

No. 02–1632.

(a) This case requires the Court to apply the rule of Apprendi v. New Jersey,, 490, 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." The relevant statutory maximum for Apprendi purposes is the maximum a judge may impose based solely on the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant. Here, the judge could not have imposed the 90 month sentence based solely on the facts admitted in the guilty plea, because Washington law requires an exceptional sentence to be based on factors other than those used in computing the standard range sentence. Petitioner's sentence is not analogous to those upheld in McMillan v. Pennsylvania,, and Williams v. New York, , which were not greater than what state law authorized based on the verdict alone. Regardless of whether the judge's authority to impose the enhanced sentence depends on a judge's ﬁnding a specified fact, one of several specified facts, or any aggravating fact, it remains the case that the jury's verdict alone does not authorize the sentence. Pp. 301–305.

(b) This Court's commitment to Apprendi in this context reflects not just respect for longstanding precedent, but the need to give intelligible content to the fundamental constitutional right of jury trial. Pp. 305–308.

(c) This case is not about the constitutionality of determinate sentencing, but only about how it can be implemented in a way that respects