Taylor Arnett, et al. v. Kansas

In a series of decisions beginning with Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), the Court has held that the Sixth Amendment (incorporated against the states by the Fourteenth) requires a jury to find any fact necessary to support a criminal sentence. A jury must find any fact increasing the penalty for a crime beyond the statutory maximum, id. at 489; any fact necessary to increase the sentencing range even under a statutory maximum, Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 303-04 (2004); any fact necessary to establish a statutory minimum, Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99, 116 (2013); and any fact necessary to impose a death sentence, Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 609 (2002). And in Southern Union Co. v. United States, 567 U.S. 343, 346 (2012), the Court held that the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to have a jury find the facts necessary to impose criminal fines. Despite a well-reasoned dissent relying on this Court’s precedents and the jury’s role at common law, the Kansas Supreme Court held here that Apprendi does not apply to criminal restitution. In its view, that holding followed from this Court’s silence, and particularly the denial of certiorari in Hester v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 509 (2019), over a dissent from Justice Gorsuch and Justice Sotomayor. The question presented is: Whether the Sixth Amendment right to have a jury determine beyond a reasonable doubt every fact necessary to support criminal punishment applies not only to imprisonment, capital punishment, and fines, but also to criminal restitution.