The US Supreme Court ruled on Friday that a unanimous jury is required to apply a recidivism punishment under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act. That act imposes a 15-year mandatory minimum prison term for offenders who have three or more qualifying convictions, from three separate occurrences, under the act. The court held that a jury must unanimously find that the qualifying convictions were from separate occurrences for the mandatory minimum to apply.

The opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, relied heavily on the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the US Constitution. The Fifth Amendment grants a right to due process while the Sixth Amendment confers the right to a jury trial. The Supreme Court’s opinion vacated a ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit made earlier this year.

The outcome was a victory for Paul Erlinger. His past burglary convictions led to a judge-imposed sentencing enhancement under the ACCA. This tripled the sentence he would have otherwise received for the crime he committed.

The case was unique because the Department of Justice, representing the United States, agreed with Elringer’s position that a unanimous jury, rather than a judge, should be required to determine whether the crimes were committed on three separate occurrences. This meant that the two adversaries in the case shared the same position. As such, the Supreme Court enlisted an attorney from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP to argue the negative position.

Justice Gorsuch stated in his opinion that this result would have numerous benefits to the judicial system. He noted that it would mitigate the risk of prosecutorial overreach and constrain the judiciary to facts found by members of the community.

Justice Kavanaugh wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Alito in full and Justice Jackson in part. The dissent argued that the previous precedent that a judge was able to make this type of legal decision was rightfully decided.

Justice Jackson also wrote her own dissent in which she stated that “applying the Apprendi rule to ACCA’s occasions finding creates all sorts of practical problems that are easily avoided by simply allowing judges to do what they have always done. Because the Court pushes the flawed Apprendi rule past where it needs to go, and, incidentally, establishes a procedural requirement that is likely impossible to implement in real life, I respectfully dissent.”