Austin Kyle Lee v. United States

Petitioner Austin Lee was sentenced for drug offenses based on a statutory enhancement, revised under the First Step Act of 2018, for defendants with a prior conviction for a “serious drug felony.” Despite the government’s request that three factual predicates for the enhancement be submitted to a jury, the district court made the necessary factual findings itself. On appeal, the government conceded error under Apprendi. But the court of appeals nevertheless affirmed, concluding that any error in the district court’s treatment of two of the factual predicates was “harmless” under Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999), and that the third predicate fell within a narrow exception to Apprendi under AlmendarezTorres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998). The questions presented are as follows:

1. Whether, as several circuits have held, all Apprendi violations should be treated as trial errors and subject to the harmless-error test from Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999), or, as the Third Circuit has held, at least some Apprendi errors should be treated as sentencing errors and evaluated under the harmless-error test from Parker v. Dugger, 498 U.S. 308 (1991).

2. Whether Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), should be overruled.