Almendarez-Torres v. United States

Almendarez-Torres v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 14, 1997 Decided March 24, 1998
Full case name	Hugo Almendarez-Torres v. United States of America
Citations	523 U.S. 224 (more) 118 S. Ct. 1219; 140 L. Ed. 2d 350
Case history
Prior	Conviction affirmed, 113 F.3d 515 (5th Cir. 1996); cert. granted, 520 U.S. 1154 (1997).
Subsequent	Rehearing denied, 530 U.S. 1299 (2000).
Holding
The fact of a defendant's prior convictions is not subject to the jury-trial requirement of the Sixth Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Breyer, joined by Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Thomas
Dissent	Scalia, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg
Laws applied
8 U.S.C. § 1326; U.S. Const. amend. VI

Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court written by Justice Stephen Breyer which confirmed that a sentencing enhancement for a prior felony conviction was not subject to the Sixth Amendment requirement for a jury to determine the fact beyond a reasonable doubt.