David Everette v. New York

Since deciding that the fact of a prior conviction can “authorize” a longer sentence, Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 246 (1998), this Court has repeatedly had to clarify that “a judge may ‘do no more, consistent with the Sixth Amendment, than determine what crime, with what elements, [a] defendant was convicted of.’” Erlinger v. United States, 602 U.S. 821, 838 (2024) (quoting Mathis v. United States, 579 U.S. 500, 511-12 (2016)) (“reiterat[ing] this limit on the scope of Almendarez-Torres ‘over and over,’ to the point of ‘downright tedium.’”). Nevertheless, New York sentencing courts continue to engage in judicial fact-finding to increase punishment. Indeed, the State’s enhanced sentencing regime for persistent violent felony offenders requires a judge to find that the sentence for a triggering conviction was “imposed not more than ten years before commission of the [instant] felony,” as tolled by periods of incarceration. N.Y. Penal Law § 70.04(1)(b)(iv), (v). The judge—not a jury—determines “each period of incarceration to be used for tolling of the ten year limitation[.]” N.Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 400.15(2), (7). Therefore, the question presented is: Is judicial fact-finding of periods of incarceration beyond the scope of the Almendarez-Torres exception and, thus, barred by the constitutional guarantee set forth in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000)—that “any fact that increases the penalty for a crime . . . must be submitted to a jury[] and proved beyond a reasonable doubt”?