Whether a sentencing judge can find facts about a defendant's prior offenses

QUESTIONS PRESENTED 1) Whether a sentencing judge can find facts in the first instance about whether a defendant committed offenses on different occasions by a preponderance of the evidence, and then rely on those judge-found facts to apply the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), thereby increasing a defendant’s sentence at least five years beyond the penalty established by Congress for the offense of conviction, being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)? 2) Where the definition of a violent felony under the ACCA includes the limiting language “against the person of another,” is that language mere surplusage or must a defendant be more than negligent as to whether his intentional conduct could harm another? 3) Whether, when determining whether a state offense qualifies as a violent felony, a federal court is bound by the decision of the state’s highest court to label a mens rea as something greater than negligence when this Court has unequivocally established that the same mens rea under federal law constitutes mere negligence? i