Whether a criminal sentence violates the Sixth Amendment when the sentencing court relies on its factual findings about a criminal defendant's conduct to impose a sentence longer than otherwise would have been reasonable

QUESTION PRESENTED In United States v. Booker, 5438 U.S. 220 (2005), this Court held that the United States Sentencing Guidelines violated the Sixth Amendment because they required judges to impose harsher sentences if they found certain facts at sentencing. The Court invalidated two provisions of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 that had had the effect of making the Guidelines mandatory, concluding that making the Guidelines advisory would remedy the Sixth Amendment violation while still allowing the Guidelines scheme to operate in a manner consistent with congressional intent. Specifically, the Court held that judges had flexibility to deviate from the recommended Guidelines sentence as long as the sentence remained “reasonable.” In Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338 (2007), four concurring Justices recognized that Booker’s reasonablesentence requirement sometimes leads to a different kind of Sixth Amendment issue: an “as-applied” violation. Namely, when a judge imposes a sentence that is reasonable only because the judge found an aggravating fact at sentencing, that sentence violates the Sixth Amendment. That is because, in those instances, the Guidelines sentencing scheme unconstitutionally delegates to sentencing judges the power to increase the maximum sentence by finding a qualifying aggravating fact. Yet in the years since Rita, every court of appeals with criminal jurisdiction has held that these sorts of asapplied Sixth Amendment challenges are categorically unavailable. The question presented is whether a criminal sentence violates the Sixth Amendment when the sentencing court relies on its factual findings about a criminal defendant’s conduct to impose a sentence longer than otherwise would have been reasonable. (1)