PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 21
- 4253

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA , Plaintiff

- Appellee ,

v. RICO LORODGE BROWN , Defendant

- Appellant

. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina , at Charlotte

. Kenneth D. Bell , District Judge. ( 3:20

- cr - 00223

- KDB

- DCK

- 1 )
Argued : March 10, 2023 D ecided: May 3, 2023

Before NIEMEYER and HEYTENS , Circuit Judges , and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge

.
Affirmed by published opinion

. Judge Niemeyer wrote the opinion, in which Senior Judge Floyd joined. Judge Heytens wrote a separate opinion concurring in the judgment.

ARGUED: Joshua B. Carpenter, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellant. Anthony Joseph Enright, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: John G. Baker, Federal Pub lic Defender, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. Dena J. King, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 1 of 352 NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge: After pleading guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon, in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 922(g) (1) , Rico Brown was sentenced to 15 years ’ imprisonment, an enhanced penalty that represents the mandatory minimum sentence required for such a violation when th e provisions of the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1) ,

are satisfied . ACCA provides that when a defendant violates § 922(g) and has “three previous convictions . . . for a violent felony or a serious drug offense . . . committed on occasions different from one another , ” he shall be given the enhanced sentence. Id

. Brown’s indictment did not allege the facts supporting the ACCA enhancement ; instead, the district court found them as part of the sentencing procedure. Even though we h e l d in United States v. Thompson that district court s may , consistent with the Constitution, use information “found in conclusive judicial records” to determine at sentencing that the defendant ha s th re e qualifying convictions for offenses committed on different occasions , thus triggering the ACCA enhancement , 4 21 F.3d 278,
285

– 86 (4th Cir. 2005) , Brown contends that in light of the Supreme Court’s intervening decisions in Descamps v. United States , 570 U.S. 254 (2013), Mathis v. United States , 579 U.S. 500 (2016), and Wooden v. United States , 142 S. Ct. 1063 (20 22), Thompson is no longer good law. He maintains that , in light of these Supreme Court cases and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments , ACCA ’s requirement that the defendant have committed the prior offense s on different occasions must be alleged in the indictm ent and found by a jury or admitted by the defendant in his guilty plea because th at fact increase s the penalty for his crime

. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 2 of 353 We conclude , however, that the ACCA enhancement remain s a matter for sentencing

. U nder Almendarez

- Torre s v. United States , 523 U.S. 224 (1998), the facts t hat support a recidivism enhancement ar e resolved by the district court during sentencing , and ACCA provides just such a recidivism enhancement, as we recognize d in Thompson

. Despite Brown’s arguments to the contrary, we conclude that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Descamps , Mathis , and Wooden have not narrowed or overruled Almendarez

Torre s . And if they have done so by implication , the Supreme Court must say so, not a court of appeals . Accordingly, we affirm.

I
On September 23, 2019, in Union County, North Carolina, Rico Brown sold a handgun to an undercover law enforcement officer. He was thereafter indicted for possession of a firearm while knowing that he had been convicted of a felony, in violati on of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) (1)

. At the time, t he maximum sentence for th at crime wa s 10 years ’ imprisonment , unless ACCA was appli cable. See 18 U.S.C . § 924(a)(2) (20 1 8). Under ACCA, when a defendant violates § 922(g) and has “three previous convictions . . . for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both, committed on occasions different from one another,” the mandatory minimum sentence is 15 years’ imprisonment and the maximum sen tence is life imprisonment. Id . § 924(e)(1). In this case, Brown’s indictment did not allege whether he was subject to ACCA, leaving the applicability of the enhancement to be resolved at sentencing. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 3 of 354 In January 2021, Brown pled guilty to the § 922(g)(1 ) offense. B ut b efore pleading guilty, he was advised that “the statutory punishment for a [§] 922(g) [offense] is a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years,” except that “if 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1) [ i.e. , ACCA] applies, and the defendant has three previo us convictions by any court for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, the minimum term of imprisonment is 15 years, and the maximum term is life.” Brown confirmed that he understood this, and the district court then found his guilty plea to be knowi ng and voluntary. The presentence report prepared for sentencing concluded that Brown was indeed subject to ACCA’s enhanced penalt ies based on three prior North Carolina convictions: (1) a 2008 conviction for robbery with a dangerous weapon, committed on July 14, 2007; (2) a second 2008 conviction for robbery with a dangerous weapon, c ommitted on September 24, 2007; and (3) a 2013 conviction for common law robbery , committed on October 8, 2012

. The proceedings following the two 200 7 robbery c h a rg es were consolidated, and Brown was convicted o f both robberies and sentenced to 46 to 65 months’ imprisonment on May 13, 2008

. A t the sentencing hearing , the district court adopted the presentence report and concluded that e ach of Brown’s North Carolina robbery convictions qualified as a conviction for a violent felony under ACCA and that , based on the information from state court records included in the presentence report , the three robberies were committed on different occasions . The cou rt th e refore sentenc ed Brown under ACCA to the mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years ’ imprisonment. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 4 of 355 Brown did not object to the accuracy of any information included in the presentence report pertaining to his criminal history, but he did object to t he r eport’ s conclusion that he was subject to ACCA’s enhanced penalties, arguing that “sentencing him under the ACCA would violate his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights under Apprendi v. New Jersey , 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000) and Alleyne v. United States , [570 U. S. 99] (2013).” He reasoned that even if the fact of his convictions could constitutionally be found by the court at sentencing under the holding of Almendarez

- Torres , the fact that the underlying offenses had been committed on different occasions should have been charged in his indictment and found by the jury or admitted by him i n his guilty plea

. Brown acknowledged that this
court had rejected his precise argument in Thompson , but he argued that the Supreme Court’s intervening decisions in Descamps and Mathis showed that the Court had adopted a narrower understanding of Almendarez

- Torres and that “ [ i ] n light of Descamps and Mathis , [the district court] should conclude that Thompson [wa s ] no longe r controlling precedent.” At his sentencing hearing on May 13, 2021, Brown re iterat ed the same argument while again acknowledg ing to the district court that “it does appear that . . . current Fourth Circuit precedent forecloses [ i t].” H e noted , however , that there was “a current Supreme Court case pending”

— namely, Wooden v. United States

— that might show “that Thompson [was] decided wrongly

. ” H e also continued to press his earlier arguments made under Descamps and Mathis . The district court overrul ed Brown’s objection, relying on “the existing authority of the Fourth Circuit , ” i.e. , Thompson

. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 5 of 356 From the district court’s judgment, Brown filed this appeal. We thereafter placed his appeal in abeyance pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Wooden , and after that decision was issued , the parties filed their brief s.

II ACCA provides for enhanced penalties for § 922 (g) violations when (1) the defendant has three prior convictions for a viole nt felony or a serious drug offense and (2) those offenses were “committed on occasions different from one another.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). Brown contends that the second prong

— the “ different occasions ” phrase

— constitutes an element of a distinct, ag gr av ated § 922(g) offense that must be alleged in the indictment and be either found by the jury or admitted by the defendant in his guilty plea.
To support his argument, he relie s on Apprendi v. New Jersey , 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000) (holding 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”), and Alleyne v. United States , 570 U.S. 99, 103 , 111 n.1 (2013 ) (holding that “any fact that increases the mandatory minimum [sentence] is an ‘element’ that must be submitted to the jury” but “not revisit[ing]” the “exception to this general rule for the fact of a prior conviction ” ). Brown acknowledges that the Supreme Court continues to recognize that the fact of a prior conviction remains an exception that may be found by the sentencing judge , and thus he f ocus es his argument on the second
prong

— the “ different occasions ” phrase

. See App rendi , 530 U.S. at 490; Almendarez

Torres , 523 U.S. at 244. H e also acknowledges that we specifically rejected the argument USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 6 of 357 as to the “different occasions” phra se in Thompson , wh ere we held that the district court could constitutionally determine at sentencing that the defendant committed qualifying offenses on different occasions

. 421 F.3d at 285

– 86. To avoid the consequence of Thompson ’s binding authority , Brown argues that it has been “fatally undermined” by two different strands of “ intervening Supreme Court precedent.” F irst , he contend s that in reaching its holding, the Thompson court construed the scope of the Almendarez

- Torres exception i n a manner inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s subsequent reasoning in Descamps and Mathis

. Second , he contend s that “the Thompson majority relied on an interpretation of the different

- occasions standard that is inconsistent with Wooden .” “Taken together,” he maintains, Descamps and Mathis , combined with Wooden , “dictate that the ACCA enhancem ent creates an aggravated felon

in

- possession offense” and that the Constitution requires that the “different

- occasion element” of that aggravated offense “be charged in an indictment and either admitted by the defendant as part of a guilty plea or prove n to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.” The government initially argued that “[t]he district court properly applied the Armed Career Criminal Act without requiring an allegation in the indictment or a finding by a jury that Brown committed his pre dicate offenses on different occasions.” Subsequently, however, the government advised us that , in light of Wooden , “the Solicitor General has determined that a jury must find, or a defendant must admit, that a defendant’s predicates under the Armed Caree r Criminal Act were committed on occasions different from one another

. ” As it stands, therefore, the government has changed its position and now agrees USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 7 of 358 that Brown is correct on the merits of his argument , although it maintains that the error here was harm less

. While this is unusual, it does not follow that we are required to accede to the parties’ view of such an important issue. This is especially so when we, sitting as a three

- j udge panel, may not be permitted to reach that conclusion given our precedents on this issue. See McMellon v. United States , 387 F.3d 329, 332

– 33 (4th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (recognizing that “one panel cannot overrule a decision issued by another panel” but that one panel may c onclude that the prior decision is no longer binding because it “has been overruled by an intervening opinion from this court sitting en banc or the Supreme Court”). Thus, the precise question before us is the relatively narrow one of whether our precede nt holding that the district court should determine at sentencing whether ACCA’s recidivism enhancement is applicable

— including whether the defendant committed the three predicate offenses “on occasions different from one another”

— is no longer binding in light of intervening Supreme Court decisions

. B egin ning with some general principles , we recognize that in a federal prosecution, the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require that the government allege in the indictment all the elements of the crime charged and, unless the defendant waives his right to a jury trial and pleads guilty, prove each element to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jones v. United States , 526 U.S. 227, 232 (1999) ; see also U .S. Const. a mend. V (requiring that crimes be prosecut ed on a presentment or indictment); id

. a mend. VI (requiring that “[ i ] n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury”) . Thus, “[m]uch turns on the determination that a fact is an element of USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 8 of 359 an offense,” as distinct from a sentencing factor

. Jones , 562 U.S. at 232 (emphasis added); see also Apprendi , 530 U.S. at 500 (Thomas, J., concurring) (“All of these constitutional protections turn on determining which facts constitute the ‘crime’

— that is, which facts are the ‘elements’ .

. . of a crime”). And in defining elements, the Court has held, subject to one exception , that the Constitution requires that “any fact that inc reases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum” be treated as an element of an aggravated offense

— with the consequence that it must be alleged in any federal indictment, “submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Apprendi , 530
U.S. at 490 ; see also Alleyne , 570 U.S. at 103, 111 n.1 ( extend ing Apprendi and h o ld ing that “any fact that increases the mandatory minimum is an ‘element,’” but continuing to recognize “ a narrow exception to this general rule ” ). The except ion preserved in both Apprendi and Alleyne is a penalty enhancement based on recidivism

— i.e. , a defendant’s prior convictions for crimes

— as described in Almendarez

- Torres . Because Brown’s argument turns in large part on the proper understanding of the scope of that exception, we turn first to examin ing Almendarez

- Torres

. In Almendarez

- Torres , the defendant was given an enhanced penalty f or an immigration offe nse , as authorized by 8 U.S.C. § 1326 . That provision ma kes it a crime for a person who was previously deported from the United States to return without permission , and w hile that crime ordinarily carrie s a maximum sentence of 2 years ’ imprisonment, the statute also authorize s an enhanced sentence of up to 20 years’ imprisonment if the initial deportation took place after the person was convicted of an aggravated felony. See 8 U.S.C . § 1326(a), (b)(2). The question presented was whether USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 9 of 3510 the condition for the higher maximum sentence was an element of a separate crime or whether it was a “penalty provision” authorizing the court to impose an enhanced sentence based on the defendant’s recidivis m
. Almendarez

- Torres , 523 U.S. at 226. The Court concluded that it was the latter, id ., and in doing so, it sp ecifically considered and rejected the defendant’s argument that “the Constitution requires Congress to treat recidivism as an element of the offense

— irrespective of Congress’ contrary intent , ” i d. at 239. The Court explained that “recidivism . . . is a traditional, if not the most traditional, basis for a sentencing court’s increasing an offender’s sentence.” Id. at 243. Indeed, the Court gave special emphasi s t o that fact, stating that “ recidivism

. . . is as typical a sentencing factor as one might imagine.” Id . at 230. And in the course of this discussion, the Court specifically identified ACCA as an example of another statute that provides for recidivism as a sentencing factor to be found by a court

. Id

. (citing 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)). The Court

e xplained that recidivism was “distinct” from other sentenc e - enhancing factors insofar as “recidivism ‘ does not relate to the commission of the offense , but goes to the punishment only, and therefore . . . may be subsequently decided. ’ ” Id. at 244 (emphasis altered) (quoting Graham v. West Virginia , 224 U.S. 616, 629 (1912)). The Almendarez

- Torres Court noted further that , “[c]onsistent with [the] tradition” of treating recidivism as a sentencing matter for the court, it had recognized “lo ng ago” that the government “need not allege a defendant’s prior conviction in the indictment or information that alleges the elements of an underlying crime.” 5 2 3 U.S. at 243

– 44 (emphasis omitted) (citing Graham , 224 U.S. at 624; Oyler v. Boles , 368 U.S. 448, 452 (1962); Parke v. Raley , 506 U.S. 20, 27 (1992 ) ). T h us, th e Court explain ed , “to hold that USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 10 of 3511 the Constitution requires that recidivism be deemed an ‘element’ of petitioner’s offense would mark an abrupt departure from a longstanding tradition of tr eating recidivism as [a sentencing factor] going to the punishment only.” Id. at 244 (cleaned up). The Court concluded that the Constitution did not require that “abrupt” recharacterization of recidivism, and it accordingly “reject[ed] petitioner’s const itutional claim that his recidivism must be treated as an element of his offense.” Id . at 247. Almendarez

- Torres thus stands for the proposition that facts showing recidivism are distinct from other facts that alter the statutory sentencing range for the crime charged and that the Constitution does not require that facts demonstrating recidivism be treated as element s of a distinct, aggravated offense. Indeed, the Supreme Court itself confirmed this understanding of the scope of its Almendarez

- Torres ’ holding in Jones , stating that its “precise holding ” in that case was that “ recidivism increasing the maximum penalty need not be

. . . charged” in the indictment and that this “holding . . . rested in substantial part
on t he tradition of regarding recidivism as a sentencing factor, not as an element.” Jones , 526 U.S. at 24 8

– 4 9. Thereafter, in Apprendi , Almendarez

- Torres was again left undisturbed

. To be sure, the Apprendi Court observed that “it [was] arguable that Almendarez

- Torres was incorrectly decided

. ” Apprendi , 530 U.S. at 489. Yet, the Apprendi Court nonetheless chose not to “revisit” Almendarez

- Torres and instead to “treat the case as a narrow exception to the general rule.” Id

. at 490 (emphasis added) . It identified two “reasons supporting” its recognition of th is recidivism exception. Id . at 496. First, tracking the

r ationale of Almendarez

- Torres itself, the Apprendi Court explained that “ [ w ] hereas USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 11 of 3512 recidivism ‘doe s not relate to the commission of the offense’ itself,” the fact at issue before
i t was whether, in committ ing a lesser included firearm offense, the defendant had acted with a particular purpose, which went “ precisely to what happened in the ‘commission of the offense.’” Id. (quoting Almendarez

- Torres , 523 U.S. at 244). Second, the Apprendi
Court reasoned that “there is a vast difference between accepting the validity of a prior judgment of conviction entered in a proceeding in which the defendant had the right to a jury trial and the right to require the prosecutor to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and allowing the judge to find the required fact under a lesser standard of proof.” Id. T he Court thus re cognized , in shorthand form, the Almendarez

- Torres exception, s tat ing that

“ [o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction , any fact that increases the pena lty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 490 (emphasis added)

. T here was no discussion in Apprendi suggesting that with that holding , the Court intended to modify o r narrow the scope of the Almendarez

- Torres holding , even though t he Apprendi Court referred to the recidivism exception based on that decision simply as “the fact of a prior conviction.” Id

. After Apprendi , defendants around the country who had been convicted of § 922(g) offenses relied on it to argue that their Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights had been violated when district courts determined at sentencing that ACCA’s enhanced penalties were applicable . They urged that in light of Apprendi , courts s hould treat ACCA’s requirements

as elements of a distinct, aggravated § 922(g) offense. T h o se arguments , however, were uniformly rejected by every court of appeals

— including our own

— and they did so by recognizing that Almendarez

- Torres remain ed binding law, notwithstanding Apprendi

. See USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 12 of 3513 Thompson , 421 F.3d 278; see also, e.g. , United States v. Moore , 286 F.3d 47, 51 (1st Cir. 2002) (“In the post

- Apprendi era, we have ruled with a regularity bordering on the monotonous that, given the explicit ex ception and the force of Almendarez

- Torres , the rationale of Apprendi does not apply to sentence

- enhancement provisions based upon prior criminal convictions,” including ACCA); United States v. Santiago , 268 F.3d 151 , 155 (2d Cir. 2001); United States v. B lair , 734 F.3d 218, 226

– 28 (3d Cir. 2013); United States v. White , 465 F.3d 250, 254 (5th Cir. 2006) (per curiam); United States v. Burgin , 388 F.3d 177, 183

– 87 (6th Cir. 2004); United States v. Morris , 293 F.3d 1010, 1012

– 13 (7th Cir. 2002); United States v. Harris , 794 F.3d 885, 887 (8th Cir. 2015); United States v. Grisel , 488 F.3d 844, 845

– 47 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc), abrogated in part on other grounds by United States v. Stitt , 139 S. Ct. 399 (2018); United States v. Michel , 446 F.3d 1122, 1132

– 33 (10 th Cir. 2006); United States v. Spears , 443 F.3d 1358, 1361 (11th Cir. 2006); United States v. Thomas , 572 F.3d 945, 952 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 2009). While Brown accepts the continued vitality of the Almendarez

- Torres exception insofar as it relates to the mere fact of a prior conviction , he contends that the Almendarez

Torres exception does not reach ACCA’s second requirement

— that the prior convictions be for offense s committed on different occasions . Yet, most, if not all, of the c ourt s of appeals

— again including our own

— have also considered and rejected th at argument. See Thompson , 421 F.3d at 284

– 87; see also, e.g. , Santiago , 268 F.3d at 156

– 57 (Sotomayor, J.) (“[W]e are satisfied . . . that § 924(e)’s ‘different occasions’ requirement falls safely within the range of facts traditionally found by judges at sentencing and is sufficiently interwoven with the facts of the prior crimes that Apprendi does not require USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 13 of 3514 different fact

- finders and different burdens of proof for Section 924(e)’s variou s requirements”); Blair , 734 F.3d at 226

– 28 (relying on “the continuing control of Almendarez

- Torres ” to reject the argument); Burgin , 388 F.3d at 186 (“[W]e conclude that the determinations by a district court that prior felony convictions exist and were committed on different occasions, are so intimately related that the ‘different occasions’ requirement of § 924(e) sufficiently comes within the exception in Apprendi for a prior conviction”); Morris , 293 F.3d at 1012

– 13 (“Unless and until the Court choose s to overrule Almendarez

- Torres , we are bound by it. . . . Morris has failed to articulate a reasoned basis for distinguishing [whether the predicate offenses were committed on different occasions] from other factors traditionally considered in enhancing a sentence based on recidivism”);
Harris , 794 F.3d at 887 (“Whether prior offenses were committed on different occasions is among the recidivism

- related facts covered by the rule of Almendarez

- Torres ”) ; United
States v. Harris , 447 F.3d 1300, 1304 (10th Cir . 2006) (holding that the “separateness [of occasions] falls within [ Apprendi ’s] prior crimes exception”); United States v. Longor i a , 874 F.3d 1278, 1283 ( 11 th Cir. 2017) (per curiam) (“Longor i a’s claim that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were violat ed by the District Court determining his convictions occurred on different occasions is unavailing”)

. M ost relev ant here , of course , i s our Thompson precedent, which clearly rejected the precise argument that Brown raises , relying on the full scope of the Almendarez

- Torres exception. While the dissenting judge in Thompson did argue that Almendarez

- Torres had been limited to the “fact of a prior conviction” and not to facts “ about a prior conviction,” 421 F.3d at 292 (Wilk ins, C. J., dissenting), the majority held that in applying ACCA’s USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 14 of 3515 recidivism enhancement, sentencing courts could consult “conclusive judicial records” from the defendant’s prior criminal proceeding, “take notice of the . . . dates [and] locations of [the prior offenses]” as reflected in those records, as well as other information relevant to the “ different occasion s” question , and on that limited basis determine whether the government had established that the defendant had committed the offenses that resul ted in his three prior qualifying convictions on separate occasions

. Thompson , 421 F.3d at 28 6

. B ecause Almendarez

- Torres had held that the Constitution did not require that “recidivism . . . be treated as an element,” 523 U.S. at 247, we concluded that limited judicial fact

finding with respect to the defendant’s prior convictions did not violate the defendant’s Fifth or Sixth Amendment rights , Thompson , 421 F.3d at 284

– 87.
Brown does indeed acknowledge that Thompson is squarely on point and thus would
f

oreclose his argument if it were still good law . But he maintains that Thompson is no longer controlling because it has been “fatally undermined” by the Supreme Court’s intervening decisions in Descamps , Mathis , and Wooden . We therefore must turn to those cases to determine whether they overruled or narrowed the Court’s earlier holding in Almendarez

- Torres

. First, t he Supreme Court’s decision in Wooden

— the most recent of the cases relied on by Brown and the one prompting the government to r econsider its views on ACCA’s sentencing enhancement

— address es specifically the meaning of the “different occasions” phrase in ACCA’s second prong. See 142 S. Ct. at 1068. The Wooden Court concluded that the word “occasion” in ACCA should be given its “ordinary meaning ”

— “ essentially an episode or event,” id. at 1069, and that, as a result, “a range of circumstances may be USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 15 of 3516 relevant to identifying” whether multiple criminal offenses were committed on one occasion or separate ones, id. at 1071; see also id. at 1071 n.4. Key among the factors recognized by the Court as relevant to the inquiry were the timing of the offenses and their locations. See id. at 1071. Thus, the Court explained that “a single factor

— especially of time or place

— can decisivel y differentiate occasions,” and it noted with approval that “[c]ourts . . . have nearly always treated offenses as occurring on separate occasions if a person committed them a day or more apart, or at a significant distance.” Id. (cleaned up). By contras t, “a continuous stream of closely related criminal acts at one location” represents “a single occasion,” id. , even if those crimes were committed “sequentially rather than simultaneously,” id. at 1068. Thus , the Court held that to determine whether prior offense s were committed on different occasions, courts should apply a “multi

factored” test in which “a range of circumstances may be relevant

. ” Id . at 1070

– 71. Wooden is thus a statutory decision , not a constitutional one , a nd the Court stated as much , noting that while “[t]wo amici curiae [had] briefed . . . whether the Sixth Amendment requires that a jury, rather than a judge, resolve whether prior crimes occurred on a single occasion,” it was “not address[ing] that issue because Wooden did n ot raise it.”
142 S. Ct. at 1068 n. 3

. The Wooden decision not only did not address the constitutional question that is before us

— whether ACCA’s requirement that the defendant have committed his prior crimes on different occasions must be treated as an element of an aggravated offense

— it did not even cite Almendarez

- Torres , which held that such recidivism provisions are not elements of an aggravated offense , Almendarez

- Torres , 523
U.S. at 239

– 47

. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 16 of 3517 Given that Wooden specifically stated that it was not ad dressing the constitutional question presented in this case, it is hardly controlling o n the question of whether recidivism is a sentencing matter or an element of an aggravated offense so as to undermine our holding in Thompson

. Indeed, as a matter of st atutory interpretation, Wooden i s largely consistent with Thompson , as we noted i n Thompson that “several factors” are relevant to the different occasions inquiry, chief among them “the date and location of an offense.” Thompson , 421 F.3d at 285

– 86. In s hort , Wooden clarifi es what is relevant to determin ing that the defendant’s prior predicate offenses were committed on different occasions , but it is silent as to who (judge or jury) should make that determination

. As such, notwithstanding Brown’s claim to the contrary, Wooden does not undermine the validity of our holding in Thompson

. Accord United States v. Reed , 39 F.4th 1285, 1295

– 96 (10th Cir. 2022) (emphasizing that “recently, when given the opportunity to dec ide ‘whether the Sixth Amendment requires that a jury . . . resolve whether prior crimes occurred on a single occasion [ , ] ’ . . . the Supreme Court declined to reach the issue” and reasoning that while “[t]he Supreme Court may” address the issue in the futu re “and reach a different result” than t he Tenth Circuit previously had, its own precedent on the issue would remain binding “until then” (quoting Wooden , 142 S. Ct. at 1068 n.3) ); United States v. Stowell , 40 F.4th
882 , 885 (8th Cir. 2022) (concluding tha t “[t]he problem” with the defendant’s Apprendi argument as to ACCA’s occasions phrase “is that [it] is foreclosed by [Eighth Circuit] precedent” and that “nothing in Wooden changed this”), vacated by grant of reh ’ g en banc , No. 21

- 2 234, 2022 WL 16942355 ( 8th Cir. Nov. 15, 2022). USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 17 of 3518 In addition to Wooden , Brown also relies on Descamps and Mathis to argue that, despite our prior holding in Thompson , we are compelled to conclude that ACCA’s different occasions requirement is an element of an aggravated offense, rather than a sentencing factor for the district court to determine. But t his argument can be made only
if Descamps or Mathis either overrul ed or narrowed the hold ing of Almendarez

- Torres

. We now turn to those decisions. First, n either Descamps nor Mathis considered ACCA’s “ different occasions ” phrase. I nstead , both addressed ACCA’s first requirement that the defendant have “three previous convictions . . . for a violent felony or a serious drug offense,” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1), as those terms a re statutorily defined , see id. § 924(e)(2)(A), (B) , and , in particular, the categorical approach required for determining whether prior convictions
q ualified as predicates

. Prior to Descamps and Mathis , t he Supreme Court ha d long held that when determining whether one of a defendant’s prior convictions qualifie d as a predicate conviction for ACCA, sentencing courts were to use the “categorical approach,” which involve d “‘look[ing] only to the statutory definitions’

— i.e. , the elements

— of a defendant’s prior offenses, and not ‘to the particular facts underlying those convictions.’” Descamps , 570 U.S. at 261 (quoting Taylor v. United States , 495 U.S. 575, 600 (1990)). In cases like Taylor and Shepard v. United States , 544 U.S. 13 (2005), the Court had also developed a “modified categorical approach,” which, whe n applicable, permi tted the sentencing court “to examine a limited class of documents” from the defendant’s prior criminal proceeding in order to determine whether the resulting conviction qualifie d as an ACCA predicate. Descamps , 570 U.S. at 262. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 18 of 3519 A t is sue in both Descamps and Mathis was the question of when a court could apply the modified categorical approach to facilitate the determination of whether a prior conviction qualifie d as a n ACCA predicate . Specifically, in Descamps , the Court held “that se ntencing courts may not apply the modified categorical approach when the crime of which the defendant was convicted has a single, indivisible set of elements.” 570 U.S. at 258. Instead, Descamps confirmed, the modified categorical approach may only be

em ployed “when a defendant was convicted of violating a divisible statute” with “alternative elements . . . [that] effectively creates several different crimes,” and then it may be used only to determine “which [crime] the defendant was convicted of,” so tha t the sentencing court may then determine whether the elements of that crime establish that it is categorically a “violent felony” or a “serious drug offense.” Id. at 263

– 64 (cleaned up)

. Similarly, in Mathis , the Court held that if the statute of convic tion “enumerates various [alternative] means of committing a single element,” rather than alternative elements , then the modified categorical approach could not be used , thus making it critical for courts to determine correctly whether the items enumerated in an alternatively phrased statute of conviction we re “ elements ” or “ means. ” 579 U.S. at 506 (emphasis added) . Thus, the holdings of Descamps and Mathis contribute nothing to the issue before us.
Brown , however, s eizes on limited portion s of the Court ’ s reasoning in those decisions to argue that they demonstrate that the Court has , by negative inference, narrowed the Almendarez

- Torres exception to include only the fact that the defendant was previously convicted of a particular crime and t hat other facts establishing the defendant’s recidivism must be alleged in indictments and proved to juries as elements of an aggravated offense

. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 19 of 3520 In both Descamps and Mathis , the Court explained that its caselaw “establishing [an] elements

- centric, ‘form al categorical approach’” for evaluating whether a defendant’s prior convictions qualified as ACCA predicate convictions had consistently relied on “three grounds .” Descamps , 570 U.S. at 267; accord Mathis , 579 U.S. at 510. The first of those
was “ACCA’s text and history”

— namely, that by “increas[ing] the sentence of a defendant who has three ‘previous convictions ’ for a violent felony,” “Congress intended the sentencing court to look only to the fact that the defendant had been convicted of crimes falling within certain categories, and not to the facts underlying the prior convictions .” Descamps , 570 U.S. at 267 (emphasis added) (quoting Taylor , 495 U.S. at 600); see also Mathis , 579 U.S. at 511. A second reason relied on was grounded on “the practical difficulties and potential unfairness of a factual approach,” Descamps , 570 U.S. at 267 (quoting Taylor , 495 U.S . at 600) , with the Court cautioning that “[s]tatements of ‘non

elemental fact’ in the records of prior convictions are prone to error precisely because their proof is unnecessary,” Mathis , 579 U.S. at 512 (quoting Descamps , 570 U.S. at 270) . And the thir d reason reiterated in Descamps and Mathis for strictly limiting the use of the modified categorical approach was “the categorical approach’s Sixth Amendment underpinnings.” Descamps , 570 U.S. at 269; see also Mathis , 579 U.S. at 511

– 12. Specifically, no ting that Apprendi had “held that ‘[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increase s the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt,’” the Descamps Court observed that because a district “court’s finding of a predicate offense [under ACCA] indisputably increases the maximum penalty [ , ] . . . that finding would (at USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 20 of 3521 the least) raise serious Sixth Amendment concerns if it went beyond merely identifying a prior conviction.” 570 U.S. at 269 (quoting Apprendi , 530 U.S. at 49 0 )

. The Court further noted that it had previously recognized that “[t]hose concerns . . . counsel[led] against allowing a sentencing court to ‘make a disputed’ determination ‘about what the defendant and state judge must have understood as the factual basis of the pri or plea,’ or what the jury in a prior trial must have accepted as the theory of the crime,” hence the “ insistence on the categorical approach.” Id. (quoting Shepard , 544 U.S. at 25 (plurality opinion)). By contrast, Descamps explained, by allowing the mo dified categorical approach to be employed whenever the statute of conviction encompasses more conduct than a qualifying offense, the lower court’ s “ ruling [had] flout[ed] [that] reasoning . . . by extending judicial factfinding beyond the recognition of a prior conviction.” Id. And therein lay “ the constitutional rub”: The Sixth Amendment contemplates that a jury

— not a sentencing court

— will find such facts, unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt. And the only facts the court can be sure the jury s o found are those constituting elements of the offense

— as distinct from amplifying but legally extraneous circumstances . Similarly, as Shepard indicated, when a defendant pleads guilty to a crime, he waives his right to a jury determination of only that offense’s elements; whatever he says, or fails to say, about superfluous facts cannot license a later sentencing court to impose extra punishment

. Id. at 269

– 70 ( citation omitted ). Mathis subsequently echoed that “serious Sixth Amendment concerns” had be en one of the grounds for the Court’s development of and adherence to a strict categorical approach for the identification of qualifying predicate convictions. See 579 U.S. at 511

– 12 . And, in elaborating on those “concerns,” Mathis stated as follows: USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 21 of 3522 Thi s Court has held that only a jury, and not a judge, may find facts that increase a maximum penalty, except for the simple fact of a prior conviction. See Apprendi v. New Jersey , 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000). That means a judge cannot go beyond identifying the crime of conviction to explore the manner in which the defendant committed that offense. He is prohibited from conducting such an inquiry himself; and so too he is barred from making a disputed determina tion about ‘what the defendant and state judge must have understood as the factual basis of the prior plea’ or ‘what the jury in a prior trial must have accepted as the theory of the crime.’ He can do no more, consistent with the Sixth Amendment, than det ermine what crime, with what elements, the defendant was convicted of. Id

. (emphasis added) (citations omitted)

. While the Supreme Court’s decisions in Descamps and Mathis were focused on carrying out the restrictions of the categorical approach, their l anguage at times did arguably create some tension with Thompson , where we held that a district court may, consistent with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, determine at sentencing that conclusive judicial records demonstrate that the offenses giving rise to the defendant’s three prior qualifying convictions were committed on different occasions and on that basis apply ACCA as a sentencing enhancement. See United States v. Span , 789 F.3d 320, 331

– 32 (4th Cir. 2015) (observing that “[t]he tension between Desca mps and Thompson . . . is apparent” but also suggesting that “the Supreme Court’s statements in Descamps , while foreboding, will most likely be confined to identification of a violent felony under the categorical approach”). Yet, the facts other than the fact of conviction were understood in both Descamps and Mathis to be those facts that would show that a prior conviction involved conduct amounting to a “violent felony” or “serious drug offense , ” not the facts that would show that prior offenses were committed on different occasions. See Descamps , 570 U.S. at 267 (noting that a sentencing court m ay “ look only to the fact that the defendant USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 22 of 3523 had been convicted of crimes falling within certain categories, and not to the facts underly ing the prior convictions ” ( quoting Taylor , 495 U.S. at 60 0 )); Mathis , 579 U.S. at 509 (emphasizing th at a court m ay only consider the fact of conviction and not the underlying facts of each conviction and stating, “How a given defendant actually perpetrat ed the crime

— what we have referred to as the underlying brute facts or means of commission

— makes no difference” (cleaned up) ); i d . at 510

– 1 1 (noting that “a sentencing judge may look only to the elements of the offense, not to the facts of the defendant’s conduct ” and that the sentencing judge “cannot go beyond identifying the crime of conviction to explore the manner in which the defendant committed th at offense” (emphasis added) (cleaned up) ) . The facts about whether prior offense s were committed on different occasions were never considere d in either Descamps or Mathis . Thus, whe reas Almendarez

- Torres recognized that sentencing courts may find such other facts as necessary to show recidi vism, Descamps and Mathis never questioned that

. A s such , Almendarez

- Torres was left undisturbed in its holding that recidivism facts may be resolved by the sentencing judge.
Moreo ver, t he same tension suggested as exist ing between Descamps and Mathis ,

on the one hand, and Thompson , on the other, would also exist between Descamps and Mathis , on the one hand, and Almendarez

- Torres , on the other

. In Almendarez

- Torres , the
Court specifically held that the Constitution does not “require[ ] Congress to treat recidivism [increasing the statutory sentencing range] as an element of the offense” but instead permits recidivism to be a sentencing factor found by the court. 523 U.S. at 239; see also id. at 247 (“For these reasons, we reject petit ioner’s constitutional claim that his USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 23 of 3524 recidivism must be treated as an element of his offense”); Jones , 526 U.S. at 248

– 49 (recognizing that “the precise holding” of Almendarez

- Torres was “that recidivism increasing the maximum penalty need not be . . . ch arged” as an element of an aggravated offense and that that “holding . . . rested in substantial part on the tradition of regarding recidivism as a sentencing factor, not as an element”). Ye t in Descamps and Mathis , the
Court never explor ed that tension w ith Alm e ndarez

- Torres ’ holding; indeed, the opinions for the Court did not even cite Almendarez

- Torres . Until the Supreme Co urt recognizes and resolves any alleged tension, or limits or overrules Almendarez

- Torres , we are bound to apply it. Accord Blair , 734 F.3d at 227 (holding, after Descamps , that the defendant’s constitutional argument with respect to ACCA’s different occasions requirement “fail[s]

. . . because Almendarez

- Torres has not been narrowed and remains the law”); see also United State s v. Walker , 953 F.3d 577, 581 (9th Cir. 2020) (rejecting defendant’s argument that its precedent on the issue had been “implicitly overruled by Mathis ,” reasoning that

“

Mathis . . . only proscribed judges from determining whether a given factual scenario substantially qualifies as a predicate offense” and “did not speak to courts looking at dates of conviction”). At bottom, b ecause ACCA’s sentencing enhance ment for § 922(g) offenses is indisputably based on the defendant’s recidivism , we conclude that , und er Almendarez

Torres , the facts establishing the enhancement remain sentencing facts, not elements of a separate aggravated crime . T hose sentencing facts are that the defendant have three p rior convictions for specified offense s committed on different occasions, and t ogether they form the basis of a single “penalty provision [that] simply authorizes a court to increase USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 24 of 3525 the sentence for a recidivist.” Almendarez

- Torres , 523 U.S. at 226. Importantly, those recidivis m facts d o “not define a sep arate crime.” Id . And, “ [ c ] onsequently, neither the statute nor the Constitution requires the Government” to treat ACCA’s different occasions requirement “as an element of” an aggravated version of one of the § 922(g) offenses. Id.
at 226

– 27 , 247. More over, the facts addressed by Almendarez

- Torres are recidivism facts and are therefore distinct from the facts referred to in Descamps and Mathis , which addressed and prohibited consideration of the facts of conduct underlying e ach prior
conviction

. See Descamps , 570 U.S. at 267; Mathis , 579 U.S. at 509

– 10. We understand Brown ’s argument to be th at language in Descamps and Mathis shows that Apprendi had excepted from an indictment and jury only the simple fact of a prior conviction , de monstra t ing that th e Almendarez

- Torres exception is more limited than previously understood. But th e Court’s analysis in Descamps and Mathis , which did not discuss Almendarez

- Torres , w as guided by the binary question before the Court in both

cases re gard ing whether the first prong of the ACCA enhancement

— whether the defendant has three previous qualifying convictions

— is f ound by the fact of a prior
conviction or by the facts und erly ing the prior conviction . Th ose decisions never suggested that they were limiting or narrowing Almendarez

- Torres ’ application with respect to facts demonstrating the defendant’s recidivism . Rather, they were addressing only the one aspect of recidivism that required a showing of three prior conviction s . Indeed, against the background of Almendarez

- Torres and the rationale for recognizing an exception to Apprendi based on it , Brown ’s argument that the exception ha s been limited to the mere fact of conviction would lead to irrational consequences . To USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 25 of 3526 begin, it appears that Apprendi could not have narrowed Almendarez

- Torres in the manner that Brown suggests without reversing the actual result that the Almendarez

- Torres Court reach ed . The statutory enhancement there required that the defendant’s prior d eportation have occurred “ subsequent to ” the predicate conviction. 8 U.S.C. § 13 2 6(b)(2) (emphasis added). Thus, to find that the defendant was subject to the enhanced penalty provided by § 1326(b)(2), the sentencing court had to find not only that the d efendant had been convicted of an aggravated felony but also that he had been convicted of that felony before his previous deportation. Th is sequence was essential. Y et , despite th e fact that the sentencing court could apply the enhanced penalty only if it made this additional finding, Almendarez

- Torres held that “Congress intended [§ 1326(b)(2)] to set forth a sentencing factor” for a judge’s determination, rather than an element of “a separate crime

. ” 523 U.S.
at 230

. A nd it further held that the Cons titution permitted Congress to make that choice and elect to “authorize courts to impose longer sentences upon recidivists who commit a particular crime.” Id . at 23 8 (emphasis added). This demonstrates that we, as an intermediate court, are not at libert y to read the “fact of a prior conviction” exception preserved in Apprendi and Alleyne as literally limited to the bare fact of a prior conviction. Otherwise, the result reached in Almendarez

- Torres could not have st oo d. But yet all agree that the Supreme Court has not overturned Almendarez

- Torres , notwithstanding repeated calls from one member of the Court to do so. See, e.g. , Sessions v. Dimaya , 138 S. Ct. 1204, 1253 (2018) (Thomas, J., dissenting) (“The exception recognized i n Almendarez

Torres for prior convictions is an aberration, has been seriously undermined by subsequent precedents, and should be reconsidered”); Mathis , 579 U.S. at 522 (Thomas, J., USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 26 of 3527 concurring); Descamps , 570 U.S. at 280

– 81 (Thomas, J., concurring in the judgment); Shepard , 544 U.S. at 28 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (“

Almendarez

- Torres was wrongly decided” and, “in an appropriate case, this Court should consider [its] continuing viability”); see also Apprendi , 530 U.S. a t 499

– 523 (Thomas, J., concurring) (writing “separately to explain [his] view that the Constitution requires a broader rule than the Court adopts,” with no fact of a prior conviction exception). Moreover, Almendarez

- Torres was based on the ra tion ale that “ recidivism does not relate to the commission of the [instant] offense, but goes to the punishment only .” 523
U.S. at 244 (cleaned up) . And recognizing this , Apprendi explained that the Almendarez

Torres exception was based on fact s distinct from the facts of the crime being prosecuted

. See Apprendi , 530 U.S. at 488. T he Court , in its decisions subsequent to Almendarez

Torres , has not undermine d or dismiss ed th e rationale that lie s at the heart of Almendarez

Torres

. T his “distinct nature” of recidivism , which is defined by what the defendant did in the past before the conduct of his charged crime , is a sound reason to conclude

— as, indeed, the Supreme Court has h eld

— that the Constitution does not require “recidivism [to] be treated as an element of” an aggravated offense. Almendarez

- Torres , 523 U.S. at
2 44 , 2 47 (cleaned up)

. Yet, despite th i s rationale inherent in Almendarez

- Torres , Brown would have the jury decide whether prior offenses were co mmitted on different occasions ,

even before the court at sentencing ha d found the fact of the prior conviction s
. O n a more practical level, and one i mplicat ing fundamental fairness, if recidivism

w ere to be understood as an element of an aggravated offense , the result would be that any defendant who exercised his right to a jury trial c ould face having certain portions of his USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 27 of 3528 criminal history dragged in front of the jury tasked with deciding whether he has committed the instant offe nse
. Thus, for example, if Brown were correct, he would not simply have been charged with possessing a firearm while knowing he had been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) ; h e w ould have been charged with the aggravated crime of possessing a firearm while knowing he had been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year and after “commit t [ing] on occasions different from one another” three crim es that qualify categorically as violent felon ies or serious drug offenses

. Of course , a defendant charged with such an aggravated offense who chose to go to trial might be able to simply stipulate t hat he had three prior predicate convictions for crimes that occurred on different occasions

. See Old Chief v. United States , 519 U.S. 172,
1 91

– 9 2 (1997). But “[e]ven if a defendant’s stipulation w ere to keep the name and details of the previous offense[s] from the jury, jurors would still learn , from the in dictment, the judge, or the prosecutor, that the defendant had committed ” three offenses that qualify as violent felonies or serio u s drug offenses. Almendarez

- Torres , 523 U.S. at 235 (citation omitted)

. And the Supreme Court “has long recognized [that] the introduction of evidence of a defendant’s prior crimes risks significant prejudice” and that “ ‘ evidence of the . . .

nature of the prior offense ’ ” only increases that risk. Id

. (quoting Old Chief , 519 U.S . at 185). Thus, “[w]hile some defendants might benefit from a requirement that all facts

— except the fact of prior conviction, interpreted in the narrowest possible sense

— be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, . . . such a requirement is far mo re likely to prejudice rather than protect defendants,” Santiago , 268 F.3d at 156, a consideration that may well USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 28 of 3529 counsel hesitation before a declaration is made that that is what the Constitution nonetheless requires in order to adequately protect defendan ts’ rights. As it stands for now , we , as a court of appeals, remain bound by Almendarez

- Torres , which we do not understand the Supreme Court to have narrowed or modified in the manner suggested by Brown. And the negative inferences that Brown advances ba sed on some language in subsequent cases are for the Supreme Court to draw, not a court of appeals. See, e.g. , Agostini v. Felton , 521 U.S. 203, 237 (1997) (“We do not acknowledge, and we do not hold, that other courts should conclude our more recent case s have, by implication, overruled an earlier precedent. We reaffirm that ‘ if a precedent of this Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should follow the case w hich directly controls , leaving to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions’” (emphasis added) (quoting Rodriguez de Qui j as v. Shearson/American Express, Inc. , 490 U.S. 477, 48 4 (1989))). Thus , unless and until the Supreme Court expressl y overturns or narrows Almendarez

Torres , we conclude that our precedent in Thompson remains good law and that, based on the Almendarez

- Torres exception to Apprendi ’s general rule, it does not offend the Constitution to treat ACCA

— including its “ different occasions ” requirement

— as an enhancement to be applied by the district court at sentencing. See Thompson , 421 F.3d at 285

– 86 ; see also United States v. Moon , 3 1 F.4th 259, 263

– 64 (4th Cir. 2022) (concluding , post

- Wooden , that ACCA is not “a standalone criminal offense” but instead “merely a sentencing enhancement”). Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 29 of 3530 AFFIRMED. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 30 of 3531 TOBY HEYTENS, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment: I agree this panel may not grant relief, but only because of the “pruden[tial]” rule that “one panel cannot overrule a decision issued by another panel.” McMellon v. United
States , 387 F.3d 329, 332, 334 (4th Cir. 2004) (en banc). I thus concur in the judgment. In the past 20 years, the Supreme Court has incanted the same constitutional rule no fewer than nine times: “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.” Apprendi v. New Jersey , 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000). * I see two routes for saying a judge may decide whether a defendant, like Brown, committed previous offenses “on occasions different from one another,” 1 8 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1), without violating Apprendi ’s constitutional rule. The problem is Supreme Court decisions have blocked both paths. The first avenue would be concluding the “different occasions” question presents an issue of law rather than one of fact. After all, nothing in the Apprendi line of cases disturbs “the good old rule that on questions of fact it is the province of the jury, [and] on

* See United States v. Cotton , 535 U.S. 625, 627 (2002); Harris v. United States , 536 U.S. 545, 563 (2002) (overruled on other grounds by Alleyne v. United States , 570 U.S. 99 (2013)); Schriro v. Summerlin , 542 U.S. 348, 350 (2004); Blakely v. Washington , 542 U.S. 296, 301 (2004); United States v. Booker , 543 U.S. 220, 231 (2005); Washington v. Recuenco , 548 U.S. 212, 216 (2006); Southern Union Co. v. United States , 567 U.S. 343, 348 (2012); Descamps v. United States , 570 U.S. 254, 269 (2013); see also Jones v. United States , 526 U.S. 227, 243 n.6 (1999) (“[A]ny fact (other than prior conviction) that increases the maximum penalty for a crime must be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”). USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 31 of 3532 questions of law it is the province of the court, to decide.” Sparf v. United States , 156 U.S. 51, 64 (1895). But whether something happened in the past (here, conviction for a crime) is a quintessentially factual question

— a point underscored by the Court’s repeated use of the words “the fact of a prior conviction.” Worse still, Wooden v. United States , 142 S. Ct. 1063 (2022), confirms the different

- occasions analysis requires a “multi

- factored” inquiry into “a range o f ” circumstances about a defe ndant’s prior convictions. Id. at 1070

– 71. And probing the details about the “when,” “where,” “how,” and sometimes even “why” of a defendant’s previous conduct, see id. at 1071, is the precise thing the Sixth Amendment forbids judges from doing. See Mathis v. United States , 579 U.S. 500, 511 (2016) (“[A] judge cannot go beyond identifying the crime of conviction to explore the manner in which the defendant committed that offense.”). The second road would be saying Almendarez

- Torres v. United States , 523 U.S . 224 (1998), provides a constitutional get

- out

- of

- jail

- free card for certain types of judicial factfinding, and the “different occasions” inquiry is one of them. I agree we may not overrule a Supreme Court decision or seek to predict whether the Court wil l do so.
See Agostini v. Felton , 521 U.S. 203, 237 (1997). But Almendarez

- Torres is not directly on point because it involved a different statute (the Immigration and Nationality Act) and a different question (whether the defendant in an illegal reentry pr osecution was removed “subsequent to a conviction for commission of an aggravated felony”). 523 U.S. at 226 (quoting 8 U.S.C. § 1326(b)(2)). What is more, the Supreme Court has repeatedly said the “narrow exception” to Apprendi ’s general rule applies only to “the fact of a prior conviction,” Alleyne v. United USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 32 of 3533 States , 570 U.S. 99, 111 n.1 (2013), or “the simple fact of a prior conviction,” Mathis , 579 U.S. at 511. But as both the statutory text and Wooden make clear, determining whether Brown’s previous offe nses were committed “on occasions different from one another,” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1), requires going far beyond the limited fact of his convictions. I see no reason why it is any more constitutionally permissible for courts “to try to discern what a trial showed, or a plea proceeding revealed, about the defendant’s underlying conduct” when the question shifts from whether that conduct was “violent” to whether it happened on different “occasions.” Descamps v. United States , 570 U.S. 254, 269 (2013). I recogn ize Almendarez

- Torres speaks more broadly about “recidivism” and distinguishes between facts that are “sentencing factors” and those that are “elements” warranting constitutional safeguards. See, e.g. , 523 U.S. at 230. But the constitutional rule
we must a pply comes from Apprendi , not Almendarez

- Torres . So we should be guided by the Supreme Court’s repeated counsel about the scope of the “narrow exception” to Apprendi ’s general rule ( Alleyne , 570 U.S. at 111 n.1) rather than sweeping language and semantic d istinctions that have largely been clawed back by later decisions. See, e.g. , United States v. Haymond , 139 S. Ct. 2369, 2379 (2019) (noting that, since Apprendi , the Court has “repeatedly rejected efforts to dodge the demands of the Fifth and Sixth Amendm ents by the simple expedient of relabeling a criminal prosecution a sentencing enhancement” (quotation marks omitted)); Mathis , 579 U.S. at 511

– 12 (stating that, under the Sixth Amendment, a judge “can do no more .

. . than determine what crime, with what elements, the defendant was convicted o f ” without mentioning any general “recidivism” USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 33 of 3534 exception); Apprendi , 530 U.S. at 494 & n.19 (dismissing, when it comes to facts that “increase beyond the maximum authorized statutory sentence,” any constitutional dist inction “between ‘elements’ and ‘sentencing factors ’ ”). The rub is that most everything I just said has been rejected by previous panels of this Court in cases involving the same statute and the same legal question. See United States v. Span , 789 F.3d 320, 330

– 32 (4th Cir. 2015); United States v. Thompson , 421 F.3d 278, 284

– 87 (4th Cir. 2005). Indeed, the heart of my concern

— that the Sixth Amendment permits judges to find the “fact of a prior conviction” but not “fact[s] about a prior convictio n”

— was voiced by then

- Chief Judge Wilkins in his dissent in Thompson

. See 421 F.3d at 292 (Wilkins, C.J., dissenting) (quotation marks omitted). True, this Court’s precedent allows a panel to depart from an earlier decision that has been “overruled .

. . b y the Supreme Court,” McMellon , 387 F.3d at 334, or which intervening Supreme Court authority renders “no longer tenable,” United States v. Banks , 29 F.4th 168, 178 (4th Cir. 2022). But that is a high standard, and I am not confident it is satisfied here. Yes, the Supreme Court decided two cases bearing on this question

— Mathis and Wooden

— after this Court reaffirmed its position in United States v. Span , 789 F.3d 320 (4th Cir. 2015). But Mathis largely reiterated the teachings of Descamps v. United
States , 5 70 U.S. 254 (2013), which, this Court concluded, did not warrant revisiting Thompson . See Span , 789 F.3d at 330

– 32. And Wooden , in turn, announced a case

- specific and fact

- intensive inquiry for the “different occasions” question not dissimilar to one this Court has applied for more than 25 years. See Thompson , 421 F.3d at 285 (discussing USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 34 of 3535 United States v. Letterlough , 63 F.3d 332, 335 (4th Cir. 1995)). In short, my arguments are not terribly new ones. Concluding the choice to revisit this issue belongs to th e en banc Court rather than this panel, I concur in the decision rejecting Brown’s claim. USCA4 Appeal: 21-4253 Doc: 46 Filed: 05/03/2023 Pg: 35 of 35