Opinion ID: 1804987
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Fellowship of the Ring: The Supreme Court's Decisions in Apprendi and Ring

Text: The Supreme Court's decision in Ring merely applied another case, Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), decided two years earlier, to death penalty cases. Therefore, to understand Ring and its holding, we must first analyze Apprendi. The defendant in Apprendi was charged with possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, which under New Jersey law carried a maximum sentence of ten years' imprisonment. 530 U.S. at 468-70, 120 S.Ct. 2348. The trial court also found, however, that the defendant committed the offense while motivated by racial bias. The judge therefore imposed an enhanced eighteen-year sentence under the state's hate crime statute. The issue in the case was whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that a factual determination authorizing an increase in the maximum prison sentence for an offense from 10 to 20 years be made by a jury on the basis of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 469, 120 S.Ct. 2348. The Supreme Court held 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. Id. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348. Two years after Apprendi, the Supreme Court decided Ring, which applied Apprendi to death penalty cases. Although the Court in Apprendi had excluded death penalty cases from its holding, 530 U.S. at 497, 120 S.Ct. 2348, in Ring it retreated from that position. The Court instead stated that under the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, [c]apital defendants, no less than noncapital defendants ... are entitled to a jury determination of any fact on which the legislature conditions an increase in their maximum punishment. 536 U.S. at 589, 122 S.Ct. 2428.