542 U.S. 296 (2004)
In 1998, Ralph Howard Blakely abducted his estranged wife Yolanda from their orchard home in Grant County, Washington.1 He bound her with duct tape and forced her at knifepoint into a wooden box in the bed of his pickup truck while imploring her to dismiss divorce and trust proceedings.2 When their 13-year-old son Ralphy returned from school, Blakely ordered him to follow in another car under threat of harming Yolanda with a shotgun.3 Ralphy escaped at a gas station and sought help, but Blakely continued with Yolanda to a friend's house in Montana before his arrest.4
The State initially charged Blakely with first-degree kidnapping but reached a plea agreement that reduced the charge to second-degree kidnapping involving domestic violence and use of a firearm.5 Blakely entered a guilty plea admitting the elements of the reduced charge along with the domestic-violence and firearm allegations, but no other relevant facts.6 Washington law classified the offense as a class B felony carrying a statutory maximum of ten years, yet specified a standard sentencing range of 49 to 53 months for this offender score and offense level.
At sentencing the State recommended a term within the standard range.7 After hearing Yolanda's account of the incident, the judge rejected the recommendation and conducted a three-day bench hearing that included testimony from Blakely, Yolanda, Ralphy, a police officer, and medical experts.8 The judge issued 32 findings of fact detailing the defendant's motivation, methods, and violation of a restraining order, then concluded that Blakely had acted with deliberate cruelty, a statutorily enumerated aggravating factor.9
The judge imposed an exceptional sentence of 90 months, 37 months above the standard maximum.10 Blakely appealed, contending that the sentencing procedure deprived him of the right to jury determination of facts essential to his sentence.11 The Washington Court of Appeals affirmed, relying on the state supreme court's earlier rejection of a similar challenge, and the Washington Supreme Court denied discretionary review.12
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to examine the sentencing procedure under the Sixth Amendment.13
Whether the Sixth Amendment's jury-trial guarantee, as applied to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, precludes a judge from finding facts, other than those found by the jury or admitted by the defendant, that increase the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum?14
In Apprendi v. New Jersey the Court held that 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.15 The inquiry whether the required finding exposes the defendant to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury's guilty verdict alone determines the outcome.16 The statutory maximum for Apprendi purposes is the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant.17
Yes. The jury's verdict and plea authorized only the standard range of 49 to 53 months.18 The judge's finding of deliberate cruelty rested on facts neither admitted by Blakely nor found by a jury during the three-day bench hearing.19 That finding increased the sentence to 90 months and thereby exposed Blakely to a penalty exceeding the maximum authorized by the verdict alone.20
Because the additional factfinding was performed by the judge rather than submitted to a jury, the sentence violated the Sixth Amendment.21
Because the Washington sentencing judge found facts that increased petitioner's sentence beyond the statutory maximum without submitting those facts to a jury, the sentence violated the Sixth Amendment.22
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justice Breyer, Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Kennedy (in Part)
Justice O'Connor dissented on the ground that extending Apprendi to sentencing guidelines would consolidate sentencing power in the judiciary and force legislatures to abandon or overhaul guidelines systems after twenty years of reform.23 She contended that the practical costs of requiring jury findings for every aggravating factor would be substantial, including the expense of bifurcated trials, separate prosecutions for facts discovered late in proceedings, and the loss of uniformity achieved by guided discretion.24 The decision, she maintained, would produce greater judicial discretion rather than less uniformity in sentencing and would threaten tens of thousands of judgments.25
She would overrule Apprendi and affirm the judgment below.26
Joined by Justice O'connor
Justice Breyer joined the O'Connor dissent and added that the majority's rule would return sentencing to indeterminate systems or compel legislatures to create complex charge-offense statutes that undermine structured sentencing.27 He maintained that the Framers understood the jury's role as limited to finding the facts that constitute the elements of the crime and that sentencing has historically been a separate judicial function committed to the judge.28 The three options left to legislatures—pure determinate sentencing, indeterminate sentencing, or Apprendi-compliant guidelines—each threaten fairness, uniformity, or practicality, and the Constitution does not require the result reached by the majority.29
Joined by Justice Breyer
Justice Kennedy dissented on the ground that the decision disrupts the ongoing dialogue between legislatures and courts that has produced sentencing reform over more than twenty years.30 He emphasized that states should remain laboratories for innovation in sentencing guidelines and that the majority's approach prevents constructive interchange between branches by shutting down nonjudicial sources of ideas and experience.31 The Constitution does not prohibit the dynamic and fruitful dialogue between the judicial and legislative branches that marked sentencing reform on both the state and the federal levels.32