Where a state sentencing regime sets mandatory legal limits on courts' sentencing power, is the upper limit of the presumptive range the 'maximum term of imprisonment ... prescribed by law,' 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(A)?

QUESTION PRESENTED The Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), is a law that requires federal courts to determine the “maximum term of imprisonment” prescribed for a prior state conviction. For many Alabama offenses— including convictions essential to the ACCA enhancement here—sentencing judges are bound by the state’s Presumptive Sentencing Standards, which means they must impose sentences within the ranges prescribed by that law. Five courts of appeals have held that such sentencing regimes in other states prescribe the “maximum term” that ACCA and other federal criminal laws refer to. The Eleventh Circuit split from its sister circuits, holding that Alabama’s presumptive standards do not prescribe the maximum term. It held instead that higher statutory limits are the relevant maximums, even though Alabama law would have required the State to charge and prove an aggravating fact to a jury before a state court could sentence above the presumptive range. Mr. Gardner asks the Court to grant certiorari to resolve the circuit split over this question: Where a state regime sets mandatory legal limits on courts’ sentencing power, is the upper limit of the range the “maximum term of imprisonment ... prescribed by law,” 18 U.S.C. § 92.4(e)(2)(A)?