Court Opinion

ID: 9862623
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:35:39.962138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:27:12.616650
License: Public Domain

The opinion of the Court was delivered by
O’HERN, J.
An issue that is surfacing with increasing frequency in criminal cases is whether a given portion of a statute constitutes an element of an offense or, instead, is a sentencing provision. The answer determines whether the factual determinations for which the provision calls are to be made by the fact-finder or the sentencer, and whether the reasonable doubt standard of proof must be applied.
[ 67 U.S.L.W. 3289, Vol. 67, No. 16 (Nov. 3, 1998).]
This appeal presents such a question. The case concerns the constitutionality of one provision of New Jersey’s hate crime laws. With certain exceptions, the provision allows enhanced sentencing in any ease in which “[t]he defendant in committing the crime acted with a purpose to intimidate an individual or group of individuals because of race, color, gender, handicap, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity.”- N.J.S.A. 2C:44r-3(e). (For convenience we may sometimes refer to such a purpose as a “biased purpose.”) The constitutional question is whether a jury must find that purpose to have existed beyond a reasonable doubt before a court may impose an extended sentence for a hate crime. We find that the provision has been narrowly tailored to meet First Amendment concerns, and represents a legislative attempt to comply with a constitutional mandate, not a legislative attempt to circumvent due process rights to trial by jury. We affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division upholding defendant’s extended sentence for a bias crime.
I
Early on the morning of December 22, 1994, police arrested defendant at his home in Vineland for the shooting of a neighbors’ *10home. The neighbors were a black family living in an all-white neighborhood. This was the fourth time that the neighbors’ home had been fired upon. On September 24, 1994, a single bullet pierced their window, and twice in November 1994, bullets struck the exterior of the home. After the December 22 shooting, one of the neighbors recognized defendant’s grey Chevrolet truck driving away. The police were called.
The police arrived approximately twenty minutes later and arrested defendant at his home. Acting on a later-acquired search warrant, police found various weapons at defendant’s home, including a .22-caliber rifle, with laser sights and a silencer attached, and an anti-personnel bomb. During the police questioning, defendant admitted that he had fired four or five rifle shots into the home. Defendant gave a later statement in which he admitted that although “he does not know the ... victims or the family, but because they are black in color he does not want them in the neighborhood____” He said that he was “just giving them a message that they were in his neighborhood.”
A Cumberland County grand jury returned a twenty-two-count indictment against defendant. It included charges of possession of a firearm for an unlawful purpose, possession of a prohibited weapon, attempted murder, attempted aggravated assault, harassment, and possession of a destructive device.
Defendant negotiated a plea agreement under which he pled guilty to three of the counts. Two counts included the second-degree crimes of possessing a firearm for an unlawful purpose on September 24 and December 22, 1994. The third involved unlawful possession of a prohibited weapon, an anti-personnel bomb. Under the terms of the plea, any sentence imposed on the prohibited weapon count was to be concurrent with the sentences to be imposed on the two unlawful pin-pose counts. The plea agreement left the determination of the sentence on these two counts to the discretion of the court. In addition, the State reserved the right to make an application under the hate crimes law for imposition of an extended sentence on one count of the *11indictment. Possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose is a second-degree crime for which the ordinary term is between five and ten years. If approved, an extended term on one of those counts exposed Apprendi to a maximum penalty of twenty years’ imprisonment with ten years of parole ineligibility. When the weapon possessed is a firearm, the Graves Act requires the imposition of a minimum term of imprisonment of at least one-third of the sentence imposed or three years, whichever is greater. N.J.S.A. 2C:43-6(c). As part of his plea agreement, Apprendi reserved the right to contest the constitutionality of N.J.S.A 2C:44-3(e), the hate-crime sentence enhancer.
At a hearing prior to sentencing, defendant offered the testimony of a psychologist who had evaluated defendant’s mental state in order to establish the motive underlying the crimes. The witness shed light on certain psychological abnormalities of defendant. His condition did not rise to a level sufficient to establish a diminished capacity or insanity defense under N.J.S.A 2C:4-1. The psychologist diagnosed defendant as having an obsessive-compulsive disorder, a cyclothymic disorder (a type of temperament alternating moods of elation and depression), kleptomania (a tendency to steal), drug dependence, and alcohol abuse. Additionally, the psychologist concluded that although the defendant knew that he was discharging the weapon toward the house and that it was wrong to do so, “his judgment and impulse control were substantially impaired at the time of the accident.” Following that hearing, the State moved on September 5, 1995 for an extended term of imprisonment pursuant to N.J.SA 2C:44-3(e). After consideration of the testimony taken at the hearing, the trial court rejected the psychological defense, and concluded that defendant’s actions were the product of racial bias thereby satisfying the statute. The court sentenced Apprendi on one of the unlawful-purpose counts to an extended term of twelve years’ imprisonment with four years of parole ineligibility. Because this was Apprendi’s first offense, the court made the lesser sentences on the other counts concurrent with the extended term. Other fines and penalties were imposed.
*12On appeal, Apprendi charged that he had been sentenced under an unconstitutionally vague law in that it permitted a court to sentence defendant to an extended term of imprisonment on so vague a basis as that the crime had been committed “at least in part with ill will, hatred or bias toward the victim.” He further argued that the statute unconstitutionally allows imposition of an extended term of imprisonment based on proof of the biased purpose by a preponderance of the evidence rather than proof found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. A majority of the Appellate Division dismissed the vagueness challenge because in 1995, before the date of Apprendi’s sentence, the Legislature had already deleted the words, “at least in part with ill will, hatred or bias toward the victim.” 304 N.J.Super. 147, 152, 698 A.2d 1265 (App.Div.1997). The 1995 amendment excising the words was in response to this Court’s decision in State v. Mortimer, 135 N.J. 517, 641 A.2d 257, cert. denied, 513 U.S. 970, 115 S.Ct. 440, 130 L.Ed.2d 351 (1994), holding that the same language in N.J.S.A. 2C:33-4(d) (a provision of our hate-crime laws addressing harassment), was unconstitutionally vague. The Appellate Division majority found that the use of the preponderance of the evidence standard to mandate an extended term did not violate the constitutional requirement that the State must prove each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. 304 N.J.Super. at 153, 698 A.2d 1265. The panel found that the Legislature had not made racial bias an element of the crime charged because the provision was included in a section of the Criminal Code entitled “authority of court in sentencing.” Ibid. The majority reasoned that “[a]s to sentencing factors which are not elements of a crime, the State’s burden of proof is not subject to the reasonable doubt standard.” Ibid. It compared this sentencing provision to that of Graves Act sentencing under which the State need not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the actor possessed a firearm during the commission of a crime as a predicate to the imposition of a Graves Act sentence of mandatory parole ineligibility. Id. at 155, 698 A.2d 1265. One judge dissented. She found that the federal and State *13constitutions require that a jury decide each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt and that the
“purpose to intimidate ... because of race, [or] color” is an element of the crime when that purpose raises the sentence for the crime____ The State’s power to define away the elements of the crime cannot extend, as the majority holds, to defining away the actor’s culpable purpose [when it served to enhance his sentencing.]
[Id at 162, 698 A.2d 1265.]
Defendant appealed as of right under Rule 2:2 — 1(a)(2) on the basis of the dissent below.
II
A.
In order to understand this case, it is necessary to understand its background. On May 13, 1991, Steven Vawter and David Kerns spray-painted a Nazi swastika and words that seemed to spell “Hitler rules,” on a synagogue in Rumson, New Jersey. On the same day, they spray-painted a satanic legend on the driveway of a nearby Roman Catholic church. The police charged Vawter and Kerns with violations of sections 10 and 11 of New Jersey’s hate crime statute. N.J.S.A. 2C:33-10 and -11 forbade assaultive intimidation by the use of hateful symbols such as a swastika and the placement of such symbols on places of religious worship.
On August 23, 1991, David Mortimer and two juveniles spray-painted hate-filled words on the garage door of a Pakistani family’s home in East Brunswick, New Jersey. Police charged Mortimer with two counts of ethnic harassment under N.J.S.A 2C:33-4(d), which forbade harassment by offensive communications and made the offense a fourth-degree crime if one acted in part with ill will, hatred or bias and with a purpose to intimidate because of race, color, religion, sexual orientation or gender. These two 1991 cases, Vawter and Mortimer, were the first major challenges to New Jersey’s hate crime laws. State v. Vawter, 136 N.J. 56, 642 A.2d 349 (1994); State v. Mortimer, 135 N.J. 517, 641 A.2d 257 (1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 970, 115 S.Ct. 440, 130 L.Ed.2d 351 (1994).
*14States began to enact laws to counter the evil of hate crimes in the 1980s.
Today nearly every state, using varied approaches, has enacted legislation to punish acts of bias-motivated crime. Some states created new crimes of bias-motivated violence or intimidation. Others created new crimes that consist of the bias-motivated commission of a crime that already exists in [a] statute. Other states provided for enhanced penalties where commission of a crime was motivated by bias, or chose to treat the actor’s bias motivation as an aggravating circumstance in sentencing.
[Camilla Nelson, Hate Crime on the Internet, 1997 SPG NAAG Civ. Rts. Update 1, 2 (1997).]
New Jersey was one of the first states to adopt an anti-hate crime law, L. 1981, c, 282. In generic terms, the 1981 law outlawed the burning of crosses or placing of swastikas on public or private property with a purpose to terrorize others by threats of violence (Section 10) and outlawed the placing of such graffiti on houses of worship or cemeteries (Section 11).
In 1990, the Legislature expanded the coverage of our hate crime laws by enacting the “Ethnic Intimidation Act,” L. 1990, c. 87. That law (1) made the disorderly persons offense of simple assault a crime of the fourth degree if the actor had a biased purpose in selecting the victim, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-le; (2) made the petty disorderly persons offense of harassment a crime of the fourth degree if the actor had a biased purpose in selecting the victim, N.J.S.A. 2C:33-4d; and (3) added a provision allowing an extended term of imprisonment for other crimes of the first, second or third degree, N.J.S.A, 2C:44-3(e).
For convenience, we refer in this opinion to the several provisions of our hate-crime statute as Section 4d, Sections 10.and 11, Section 12e, and Section 44-3(e).
In signing the legislation, Governor Florio stated: *15That law was similar to a model hate crime statute recommended by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL). The model was “intended to assist state and local governments which would like to enact hate crime laws.” Terry A. Maroney, The Struggle Against Hate Crime: Movement at a Crossroads, 73 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 564, 589 (1998). The ADL recommended that there be “a separate substantive crime for institutional vandalism, [and a] penalty enhancement for crimes motivated by certain biases.” Id. at 589-90. The model statute provides, in pertinent part, “that a person is guilty of intimidation when he or she violates specified preexisting criminal laws ... by reason of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation of the victim.” Id. at 589 n. 146.
*14From now on, the law in New Jersey will be intolerant of ethnic intimidation. Those who commit these crimes of hate are going to face additional charges. From now on, hate crimes will be serious crimes, whether it’s a phone call in the middle of the night or vandalism that leaves hateful symbols in its wake or racial slurs.
[Wisam Ali, Florw extends term for ‘crimes of hate’, Home News, Aug. 10, 1990.]
*15B.
While Vawter and-Mortimer were pending, two other cases were working their way through the courts of other states. In one case, white teenagers had burned a cross on the fenced-in yard of a black family in St. Paul, Minnesota. R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992). Convicted under St. Paul’s hate crime ordinance, the youths appealed to the United States Supreme Court. In R.A.V., supra, 505 U.S. at 384-85, 112 S.Ct. at 2543-44, 120 L.Ed.2d at 318-19, the Supreme Court held that when a state regulates unprotected expression (fighting words), it cannot discriminate on the basis of content or viewpoint. Under that rationale, a state may prohibit the expression of fighting words (threats, harassment, etc ... ) but if a state attempts to prohibit only those fighting words that contain racist hate speech, the regulation will be subject to strict scrutiny and may be found to be under-inclusive.
States breathed a collective “sigh of relief’ when some of the constitutional concerns regarding hate crime statutes were alleviated by the Court’s decision one term later in Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476, 113 S.Ct. 2194, 124 L.Ed.2d 436 (1993). George G. Size & Glenn R. Britten, Is There Hate Speech?: R.A.V. and Mitchell in the Context of First Amendment Jurispru*16dence, 21 Ohio N. U.L.Rev. 913, 913 (1995). In that case a group of black youths, including Mitchell, pointed out a white boy on the street, beat him until he was unconscious, and then stole his tennis shoes. Mitchell, supra, 508 U.S. at 480, 113 S.Ct. at 2196-97, 124 L.Ed.2d at 442. The Supreme Court in Mitchell, supra, held that the First Amendment does not prohibit a state from providing enhanced punishment for a crime based on the actor’s discriminatory purpose in committing the crime. Id. at 486, 113 S.Ct. at 2200, 124 L.Ed.2d at 445-46 (citing Dawson v. Delaware, 503 U.S. 159, 165, 112 S.Ct. 1093, 1097, 117 L.Ed.2d 309, 317 (1992)). Whereas the invalidated St. Paul ordinance in R.A.V. was expressly directed at expression, Mitchell explained that “[the sentence enhancer] in this case is aimed at conduct unprotected by the First Amendment.” Id. at 487, 113 S.Ct. at 2201, 124 L.Ed.2d at 447.
It is not perfectly clear however, in what sense the hate crime sentence enhancer upheld in Mitchell was directed at conduct, whereas the St. Paul ordinance struck down in R.A.V. was directed at speech. Alan E. Brownstein, Rules of Engagement for Cultural Wars: Regulating Conduct, Unprotected Speech, and Protected Expression in Anti-Abortion Protests, 29 U.C. Davis L.Rev. 553, 560 (1996). Both ordinances appeared to have been “directed at bias-motivated behavior.” Id. at 560. A more cynical view may be that the Supreme Court “shrugged off” without making a “full retreat” from the position that it had taken in R.A.V. Robert R. Riggs, Punishing the Politically Incorrect Offender Through “Bias Motive”Enhancements: Compelling Necessity or First Amendment Folly?, 21 Ohio N. U.L.Rev. 945, 950 (1995). “Ultimately, stare decisis leaves ... no alternative but to follow the complex footsteps of Vawter and R.A.V.” Lorri R. Forter, The Role of Precedent in Hate Crime Decisions, 5 Temp. Pol. & Civ. Rights L.Rev. 243, 253 (1996).
C.
Consistent with the principles of the two cases, our Court has struck down the features of the New Jersey hate-crime law that *17fall within the pattern of R.A.V. as being directed at speech or expression. Conversely, our Court has upheld the features of the law that fall within the pattern of Wisconsin v. Mitchell as being penalty-enhancers.
In Vawter, Vawter and Kerns had been charged under Sections 10 and 11 of the 1981 law. The Court found that those Sections represented content-based restrictions that were unconstitutional because they punished only threats or displays of graffiti expressive of certain beliefs, not all threats. Vawter, supra, 136 N.J. at 75, 642 A.2d 349. The Court concluded that in adopting those sections, the Legislature was “obviously expressing its disagreement with the message conveyed by the conduct that'the statutes regulate.” Id. at 68, 642 A.2d 349. The Court “reluctantly” based its decision on the Supreme Court’s decision in R.A.V., supra. Id. at 70, 642 A.2d 349. In his separate opinion in Vawter, Justice Stein perceived the flawed logic of R.A.V.’s “underbreadth” analysis. Id. at 98, 642 A.2d 349 (Stein J., concurring). He viewed Sections 10 and 11 as step-by-step legitimate responses to “the most virulent and dangerous formulation of bias-motivated incitements to violence.” Ibid.
Mortimer, on the other hand, had been charged with one count of harassment under N.J.S.A. 2C:33-4d. Distinguishing the harassment provisions in Section 4d from those in Sections 10 and 11, the Court dismissed Mortimer’s First Amendment challenge. Justice Clifford explained that the St. Paul ordinance “prohibited the expression of hate,” while Section 4d “increases the level of the crime only when a person acts on his or her beliefs and selects the victim with a purpose to intimidate because of one of the specified circumstances — race, color, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity----[Thus,] Section 4 proscribes only the harassing conduct itself.” Mortimer, supra, 135 N.J. at 528, 641 A.2d 257. The Court concluded that the statutory language, “at least in part with ill will, hatred or bias toward the victim,” was unconstitutionally vague because it failed “to communicate with sufficient clarity what the statute prohibits.” Id. at 533, 641 A.2d 257. In order to *18avoid the vagueness problem and thus construe the statute constitutionally, the Court excised the vague language from subsection d. Id. at 534, 641 A.2d 257. Following the decision in Mortimer, the Legislature amended N.J.S.A 2C:33-4d and N.J.S.A. 2C:44-3(e) to excise the vague language.
Although it is true that in Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the jury found that the defendant had intentionally selected his victim based on race, nothing in Mitchell or Mortimer alerted the Legislature to the concern that the penalty-enhancing provisions of its hate crime law would be unconstitutional because a judge, not a jury, found the biased purpose to intimidate by a preponderance of the evidence.. The question is — when does due process require jury findings beyond a reasonable doubt.
Ill
A.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the essential elements of a crime be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In Re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). There is, however, no litmus test or unerring “constitutional calculus” for determining what is an essential element of a crime. N.J.S.A 2C:l-14(h) defines an element of an offense as:
(l)such conduct or (2)such attendant circumstances or (3)sueh a result of conduct as
(a) is included in the description of the forbidden conduct in the definition of the offense;
(b) establishes the required kind of culpability;
(c) negatives an excuse or justification for such conduct;
(d) negatives' a defense under the statute of limitations;
(e) establishes jurisdiction or venue.
These definitions do not explicitly cover Section 44-3(e).
Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 704, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 1892, 44 L.Ed.2d 508, 522 (1975), held that under a Maine statute that defined the offense of first-degree murder in terms of the absence of heat of passion, due process required the State to bear the *19burden on that fact. Martin v. Ohio, 480 U.S. 228, 234, 107 S.Ct. 1098, 1102, 94 L.Ed.2d 267, 274-75 (1987), upheld a law imposing on a defendant the burden of proof of self-defense because the same evidence will often negate the State’s case even if insufficient to prove self-defense by a preponderance of the evidence. In Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 220-21, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 2332, 53 L.Ed.2d 281, 298 (1977), because New York established the penalty for second-degree manslaughter on the basis of mitigation premised upon a finding of ‘extreme emotional disturbance,’ the Court permitted New York to impose on the defendant the burden of proving that factor. McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 2411, 91 L.Ed.2d 67 (1986), upheld a Pennsylvania statute that contained a sentencing factor — “visible possession of a firearm” — the presence of which required the judge to impose a minimum prison term of five years. The Court held that the Constitution did not require Pennsylvania to treat the factor as an element of the crime. Id. at 91, 106 S.Ct. at 2419, 91 L.Ed.2d at 79. In so holding, the McMillan Court said that the State’s “link[ing] the ‘severity of punishment’ to ‘the presence or absence of an identified fact’” did not automatically make that fact an “element.” Id. at 84, 106 S.Ct. at 2415, 91 L.Ed.2d at 75 (quoting Patterson, supra, 432 U.S. at 214, 97 S.Ct. at 2329, 53 L.Ed.2d at 294). Citing Patterson, the Supreme Court said that “the state legislature’s definition of the elements of the offense is usually dispositive.” Id. at 85, 106 S.Ct. at 2415, 91 L.Ed.2d at 75. It said that it would not “define precisely the constitutional limits” of a legislature’s power to define the elements of an offense. Id. at 86, 106 S.Ct. at 2416, 91 L.Ed.2d at 76. Finally, the Supreme Court held that, whatever those limits might be, the State had not exceeded them. Ibid.
The primary concern of the Supreme Court in this series of cases has been whether “states would circumvent due process by redefining the essential elements of guilt as affirmative defenses or as sentencing factors.” State v. Krantz, 241 Mont. 501, 788 P.2d 298, 304 (1990) (emphasis added), cert. denied. 498 U.S. 938, 111 S.Ct. 341, 112 L.Ed.2d 306 (1990). Because the Supreme *20Court has declined to “define precisely the constitutional limits” on the states’ ability to define elements of an offense, McMillan, supra, 477 U.S. at 86, 106 S.Ct. at 2416, 91 L.Ed.2d at 76, we must attempt to determine what those limits are.
B.
We begin by stating the obvious. Merely because the Legislature has placed the hate-crimes enhancer within the sentencing provisions of the Code of Criminal Justice does not mean that the finding of a biased purpose to intimidate is not an essential element of the offense. Were that the case, the Legislature could just as easily allow judges, not juries, to determine if a kidnaping victim has been released unharmed. See State v. Federico, 103 N.J. 169, 510 A.2d 1147 (1986) (requiring State, in order to establish first-degree kidnaping offense, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that victim was not released unharmed).1
Second, the constitutional question may not be avoided by characterizing a biased “purpose to intimidate” as a “motive”. Of course it is true that motive is not an essential element of a crime. But in ordinary circumstances proof of motive does not increase the penal consequences to an actor. Whether one kills out of jealousy or for pecuniary gain does not increase the non-capital sentence for the crime. Whether one steals to put bread on a table or to feed a drug habit does not increase the sentence for theft. A finding under Section 2C:44-3(e) of a “motive” to intimidate because of the victim’s race or ethnicity has vastly different consequences than in regular criminal proceedings. Labels do not afford an acceptable answer. Indeed, the exclusion of the words “at least in part with ill will, hatred or bias toward the victim” *21limits our ability to view this finding as merely a search for motive. We must search for firmer principles of decision.
Our existing precedent does not control the disposition of this case. Although Mortimer, supra, assumed in the prosecution of a Section 4 harassment offense that evidence of a biased purpose would be “introduee[d] ... at trial” as part of the “required state of mind or mens rea ” under the statute, 135 N.J. at 531, 534, 641 A.2d 257, the Court did not address the Section 43 sentence enhancer. Similarly, State v. Camacho, 153 N.J. 54, 56-57, 707 A.2d 455 (1998), posed the question for resolution in the case as “whether intent to use a firearm against the person, as opposed to the property, of another is an element” of possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose entitling a defendant to a jury trial on that issue or was instead a sentencing factor for the court. Camacho did not explore the underlying question of the constitutional limits on allocating sentencing factors to a judge or jury.
C.
Any disposition that we make is necessarily tentative in the sense that the final word on this subject will have to come from the United States Supreme Court. The recently enacted amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines now include a hate crime penalty enhancement provision that applies to all federal crimes. See Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Pub.L.N. 103-322, § 280003 (1994), 108 Stat. 2096; 28 U.S.C.A. § 994. Effective November 1, 1995, federal sentencing guidelines provide that the defendant’s offense level is to be increased by three levels
[i]f the finder of fact at trial or, in the case of a plea of guilty or nolo contendere, the court at sentencing determines beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally selected any victim or any property as the object of the offense because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person____
[U.S.S.G., § 3A1.1]
Although the federal hate crimes law requires the jury to resolve the issue of biased purpose as part of any trial, the law allows, in *22the same circumstances as of this ease, a judge to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally selected the victim because of the race, creed, or other characteristic of the victim. Eventually then the United States Supreme Court will have to resolve the issue that we face in this case. For now, we must examine its existing precedent to determine the proper disposition.
In its most recent treatment of the subject, Jones v. United States, — U.S.-, 119 S.Ct. 1215, 1222, 143 L.Ed. 2d 311 (1999), the Court, in order to avoid an interpretation that would pose “grave and doubtful constitutional questions,” held as a matter of statutory construction, not constitutional requirement, that provisions of the federal carjacking statute that established higher penalties to be imposed when the offense results in serious bodily injury or death constituted additional essential elements of the offense. As essential elements of an offense, these factual matters must be decided beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury, not a judge. In re Winship, supra, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368. In the course of its .opinion in Jones, the Court stated that
under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the notice and jury trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment, any 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 l-easonable doubt. Because our prior cases suggest rather than establish this principle, our concern about the Government’s reading of the [caijadring] statute rises only to the level of doubt, not certainty.
[Jones, supra, — U.S.-, 119 S.Ct. at 1224 n.6,143 L.Ed.2d 311.]
The five members of the majority in Jones included one member who had joined a different formulation in the Supreme Court’s 1998 opinion, Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998).
Because the language in Jones was not essential to its holding, and because the Court did not expressly overrule the Almendarez-Torres formulation, we believe that case still states the ratio*23nale that we must apply here.2 In Almendarez-Torres, the Court upheld a statute that treats an alien’s earlier illegal entry as a sentencing factor upon a subsequent conviction of illegal re-entry, rather than as an element of that offense. Id. at-, 118 S.Ct. at 1233, 140 L.Ed.2d at-. The Court explained, “to hold that the Constitution requires that recidivism be deemed an ‘element’ of [an] offense would mark an abrupt departure from a longstanding tradition of treating recidivism as ‘going to the punishment only.’ ” Id. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 1231, 140 L.Ed.2d at -(quoting Graham v. West Virginia, 224 U.S. 616, 629, 32 S.Ct. 583, 587-88, 56 L.Ed. 917 (1912)). Rather than to reinvent the analysis, we will simply restate it in full:
In assessing petitioner’s claim [that a jury not a judge would have to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Almendarez had previously entered the country illegally]', we have examined McMillan to determine the various features of the case upon which the Court’s conclusion arguably turned. The McMillan Court pointed out: (1) that the statute plainly “does not transgress the limits expressly set out in Patterson,” id,, at 86, 106 S.Ct., at 2416; (2) that the defendant (unlike Mullaney’s defendant) did not face “ ‘a differential in sentencing ranging from a nominal fine to a mandatory life sentence,’ ” 477 U.S., at 87, 106 S.Ct., at 2417 (quoting Mullaney, 421 U.S., at 700, 95 S.Ct., at 1890); (3) that the statute did not “alte[r] the maximum penalty for the crime” but “operates solely to limit the sentencing court’s discretion in selecting a penalty within the range already available to it,” 477 U.S., at 87-88, 106 S.Ct., at 2417; (4) that the statute did not “creatfe] a separate offense calling for a separate penalty,” id, at 88, 106 S.Ct., at 2417; and (5) that the statute gave “no impression of having been tailored to permit the visible possession finding to be a tail which wags the dog of the substantive offense,” but, to the contrary, “simply took one factor that has always been considered by sentencing courts to bear on punishment ... and dictated the precise weight to be given that factor,” id, at 88, 89-90, 106 S.Ct., at 2417, 2418.
[Id at --, 118 S.Ct. at 1230, 140 L.Ed.2d at-.]
With but one exception, that the Section 44-3(e) finding does “alter the maximum penalty for the crime,” the hate-crimes enhancer resembles McMillan in respect of all of the other factors. The statute plainly does not transgress the limits set out in *24Patterson that due process of law does not. allow the state to shift the burden of proof by presuming a necessary ingredient upon proof of the other elements of the offense, 432 U.S. at 215, 97 S.Ct. at 2329-30, 53 L.Ed.2d at 295 (1975); the differential in sentencing is not between a nominal fine and mandatory life sentence; the statute does not create a separate offense calling for a separate penalty; the statute gives no impression of having been tailored to permit the bias finding to be a “tail that wags the dog of the substantive offense.” There is simply no indication that the Legislature restructured its criminal code and sentencing structures in an attempt to “evade” the commands of Winship, supra, a dominant theme underlying the Court’s decision in Mullaney, supra, 421 U.S. at 698, 95 S.Ct. at 1889, 44 L.Ed.2d at 519; see Adamson v. Ricketts, 865 P.2d 1011 (9th Cir.1988) cert. denied, 497 U.S. 1031, 110 S.Ct. 3287, 111 L.Ed.2d 795 (1990)(invalidating Arizona’s death sentencing provisions in part because it withdrew from its substantive criminal law various elements traditionally reserved for jury determination and reclassified them as sentencing factors).
• On the contrary, the Legislature simply took one factor that has always been considered by sentencing courts to bear on punishment and dictated the weight to be given that factor. A finding of a biased motive or purpose to intimidate, like the factor of recidivism in the Almendarez-Torres analysis, is a very traditional sentencing factor. N.J.S.A. 2C:44 — 1(2) has long allowed sentences to take into account the gravity of the harm inflicted on the victim.
Altering the maximum penalty in and of itself has been held not to change the constitutional calculus. In State v. Krantz, supra, 788 P.2d at 303, the Montana Supreme Court found that its “weapon enhancement” sentencing statute did not offend due process even though the determination of weapon usage “could lead to a punishment beyond the maximum provided for the underlying crime.” It reasoned that the Montana weapon enhancement statute does not create a separate crime or element of *25a crime. In another sense, a discretionary sentence enhancer may not have as drastic a penal consequence as a mandatory sentence without possibility of parole.
We agree with the concurring member of the Appellate Division that, like our Graves Act decisions, this decision will pose no threat to constitutional liberties. Almost invariably there is no real doubt about the factual issue that determines the sentencing decision. In State v. White, 98 N.J. 122, 484 A.2d 691 (1984), the underlying conviction of robbery in the first degree was based on the presence of a firearm. The legal issue was whether an accomplice who did not actually possess the weapon could be sentenced to a Graves Act sentence. In State v. Stewart, 96 N.J. 596, 477 A.2d 300 (1984), the defendant admitted that there were firearms in the truck that he was using at the time of the robbery, but contended that such constructive possession, as opposed to use, did not warrant a Graves Act sentence. In like fashion, we believe that in eases like Vawter (had the defendants been charged other than under Sections 10 & 11) and Mortimer, there is rarely any doubt whether the defendants committed the crimes with the purpose of intimidating the victim on the basis of race or ethnicity. In addition, enhanced sentencing under Section 44-3(e) is limited to cases in which there is said to be a “compelling State interest” to vindicate constitutional rights to be free of invidious discrimination. People v. MacKenzie, 34 Cal.App.4th 1256, 40 Cal.Rptr.2d 793, 800-01 (Ct.App.1995) (citing Mitchell, supra, 508 U.S. at 488, 113 S.Ct. at 2201, 124 L.Ed.2d at 447).
Amicus Public Defender has prudently argued that the Court should hesitate to endorse this sentencing scheme because the concept (removing the elements of a crime from its substantive definition and including them in the sentencing provisions of the Code) could undermine traditional rights to trial by jury and the due process of law. There should be no mistake that the Court would not permit the Legislature (even were it so inclined) to remove traditional mens rea or grading factors (such as the absence of passion/provocation in a murder) from the substantive *26definition of a crime to be determined by a jury and reallocate them for determination by a judge as part of the sentencing process. See State v. Smith, 279 N.J.Super. 131, 652 A.2d 241 (App.Div.1995) (holding grading provisions based on age of kidnaping victim are elements of offense). The issue posed in this case is all but idiosyncratic owing to the constitutional concerns about punishing thought itself.
We acknowledge that Florida has interpreted its similarly-worded statute to require a jury to find as a predicate to sentencing that the crime was bias motivated. State v. Stalder, 680 So.2d 1072 (Fla.1994). We believe that resolution poses as many problems as it solves. To allow generally in criminal trials proof of the biases of the accused creates an added risk of prejudice for defendants. It would open trials to evidence of former acts of bias on the part of the actor. Ayers v. State, 335 Md. 602, 645 A.2d 22 (Md.1994) cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1130, 115 S.Ct. 942, 130 L.Ed.2d 886 (1995); but see Mortimer, supra, 135 N.J. at 538, 641 A.2d 257 (cautioning that as condition of admission of other acts of bias, the nexus between incidents must be strong). It would inject into the trial of eases issues of racial or ethnic bias that have a potential to inflame a jury. State v. Crumb, 277 N.J.Super. 311, 321, 649 A.2d 879 (App.Div.1994), certif. denied., 153 N.J. 215, 708 A.2d 66 (1998). In Crumb, supra, because “the bias count ... may, if tried with the other counts, skew decisions regarding admission of evidence,” the court severed the bias count from the trial. Ibid. In State v. Carter, 91 N.J. 86, 449 A.2d 1280 (1982), the Court narrowly affirmed the murder conviction of defendants, holding that the admission of evidence tending to show that their actions were motivated by racial revenge was not so prejudicial as to outweigh its probative value.
IV
To sum up, as the dissent observes, post at 50, 731 A.2d at 511, a statutory argument can be made that the actor’s biased purpose to intimidate establishes a required kind of culpability, an element *27of the offense that must be determined by the jury. However, the biased purpose is not an element of the weapons possession charge. It sufficed to establish that offense that defendant intended to shoot at the victim’s home, an unlawful purpose in itself. The more significant problem with defendant’s statutory argument is that the Legislature has expressly provided otherwise. The question then is not statutory but constitutional. The reasons that impelled the Legislature to provide that the actor’s biased purpose be treated as a sentencing factor are not constitutionally suspect. There is a subtle interplay of constitutional values .involved — a First Amendment concern expressed in R.A.V. that society not punish thought itself, even hateful thoughts, and a compelling state interest to vindicate the rights of citizens to be free of invidious discrimination. Wisconsin v. Mitchell, supra, 508 U.S. at 487, 113 S.Ct. at 2201, 124 L.Ed.2d at 447.
“To declare a statute unconstitutional is a judicial power to be delicately exercised.” Harvey v. Essex County Bd. of Freeholders, 30 N.J. 381, 388, 153 A.2d 10 (1959). “[A] legislative act [should] not be declared void unless its repugnancy to the constitution is clear beyond reasonable doubt.” Gangemi v. Berry, 25 N.J. 1, 10, 134 A.2d 1 (1957). The claim that the statute here conflicts with a constitutional right is far from clear beyond a reasonable doubt. On balance, we find that in this case the “constitutional calculus” of McMillan sustains the statutory scheme. The hate-crime enhancer obviously requires a delicate balance of constitutional rights. We do not punish thought. We do punish more severely crimes involving particularly vulnerable victims.3 We are certain that the law will not be abused. The *28requirements of the act are strict. It is not enough to show that during the commission of a crime the actor may have exhibited bias. The question is whether the purpose of the crime was to exhibit bias. In Dobbins v. State, 605 So.2d 922 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1992), aff'd, 631 So.2d 303 (Fla.1994), the court found that evidence of the defendant’s racial bias against people of the Jewish faith was not enough to invoke a sentence enhancement; rather, the jury must find that the defendant intentionally chose the victim, and committed the crime because of the racial motivation. Id. at 923; see also Abbott v. State, 705 So.2d 923 (1997) (explaining that it is insufficient to exhibit bias in the course of committing crime; rather actor must intentionally select victim because of victim’s race, creed, color or ethnicity). The use of the term “because of’ in a hate-crime statute “connotes a causal link between the infliction of injury and bias motivation____” Martinez v. State, 980 S.W.2d 662, 667 (Tex. Ct.App.1998 pet. ref'd).
There is one troubling aspect to this case. The trial court did not articulate the current statutory standard in sentencing. At the time of sentencing, although counsel was aware of the Mortimer decision, court and counsel were seemingly unaware of the then recent amendment to Section 44-3(e) that had excised, on the basis of Mortimer, the offending language concerning one having acted “at least in part” with ethnic bias or ill will in committing the crime. Although the issue of the court’s articulation of the sentence is not before us on the basis of the dissent below, we are satisfied that no court could but conclude that the actor’s purpose was, in fact, to intimidate the victims because of their color. The only question before the trial court was whether defendant’s mental state, subjected to alcoholism, was such that he could not form the biased purpose. The trial court’s review of the evidence *29submitted by defendant adequately disposed of that issue. There is no real question as to this actor’s purpose in shooting into his neighbors’ home.
In addition, we believe the sentence imposed was fair and just. Defendant was exposed to three charges of attempted murder and three charges of attempted aggravated assault with a weapon. If convicted of all counts he could have faced life in prison. His plea bargain exposed him to a sentence of thirty-five years with a twelve-year ineligibility period. (Although the plea form recites a maximum of ten years on each weapon count, it was understood that one of these sentences could be enhanced.) Had unenhanced sentences on the two separate unlawful possession of weapons offenses been made consecutive, defendant would have been exposed to twenty years’ imprisonment with six years of parole ineligibility. The sentence imposed was twelve years’ imprisonment with four years of parole ineligibility. A satisfactory plea bargain afforded a fair and just resolution of the matter to the State and to defendant. We would not disturb the sentence in this case.
The judgment of the Appellate Division is affirmed.

 Federal courts have split on the extent to which a punishment scheme may be viewed as a sentence enhancement provision before it amounts to the definition of a new crime. Compare United States v. Stone, 139 F.3d 822 (11th Cir.1998), with United States v. Palacios-Casquete, 55 F.3d 557 (11th Cir.1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1120, 116 S.Ct. 927, 133 L.Ed.2d 855 (1996).

 We acknowledge that the Jones Court specifically excepted recidivism or prior convictions from its general statement of the law concerning sentence enhancers, arid therefore had no occasion to overrule Almendarez-Torres. Jones, supra, — U.S.-, 119 S.Ct. at 1227, 143 L.Ed.2d-.

 "[T]here may be an exception to the general rule that the preponderance standard satisfies due process when a sentencing factor has an extremely disproportionate effect on the sentence relative to the offense of conviction." United States v. Restrepo, 946 F.2d 654, 659 (9th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 503 U.S. 961, 112 S.Ct. 1564, 118 L.Ed.2d 211 (1992) (citation omitted). We need not decide today whether the enhancement of' a ten-to-twenty year first-degree offense to life imprisonment under N.J.S.A. 2C:44-3(e) would offend due process. *28If a defendant has committed a first-degree crime and selected a victim for reasons of bias, the law provides ample remedies. See State v. Crumb, 307 N.J.Super. 204, 704 A.2d 952 (App.Div.1997), certif. denied, 153 N.J. 215, 708 A.2d 66 (1998) (imposing sentence of life with a thirty-year parole ineligibility period for biased killing).