Whether the Tenth Circuit's decision conflicts with Apprendi v. New Jersey and Ring v. Arizona

QUESTION PRESENTED Oklahoma’s capital scheme does not permit jurors to consider imposing a death sentence on the accused unless, before it unanimously makes the subjective moral determination to impose the ultimate sentence, it finds as a prerequisite that a statutory aggravating circumstance it has found beyond a reasonable doubt outweighs a finding of one or more mitigating circumstances. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded it was bound by its own precedent which had held Oklahoma juries need not make this critical finding of fact “beyond a reasonable doubt.” This presents the following question for this Court’s review: Whether the Tenth Circuit’s decision — that the “beyond the reasonable doubt” standard does not apply to the critical and prerequisite finding by Oklahoma jurors that an aggravating circumstance outweighs any finding of mitigating circumstances — conflicts with the settled precedent of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000) and Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002)? i