Opinion ID: 202877
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Constitutional Challenges to the ACCA

Text: Duval and Doucette both argue that the Government's failure to plead and prove their prior convictions to the jury renders ACCA sentences invalid under the Sixth Amendment. We review constitutional challenges to the ACCA de novo. United States v. McKenney, 450 F.3d 39, 45 (1st Cir.2006). The Supreme Court rejected this very argument in Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 247, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998), and has since reiterated its position that the fact of a prior conviction is exempt from the general rule that a jury must find any fact that raises a sentence above the statutorily-prescribed maximum, see United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 244, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005); Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). We continue to be bound by Supreme Court precedent on this point, and as such, we must reject Duval and Doucette's Sixth Amendment challenge to the imposition of an ACCA sentence. See, e.g., McKenney, 450 F.3d at 46; United States v. Coplin, 463 F.3d 96, 105 (1st Cir.2006).