Whether a district court violates a defendant's Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights by basing a substantial four-level sentencing enhancement on conduct for which a jury has acquitted the defendant?

QUESTION PRESENTED FOR REVIEW In 1997, this Court held that a sentencing court may rely on acquitted conduct to enhance a sentence and that the conduct need only to be proven by a preponderance of the evidence at sentencing. United States v. Watts, 117 8. Ct. 633, 638 (1997). However, this Court later clarified that the holding in Watts only “presented a very narrow question regarding the interaction of the [Sentencing] Guidelines with the Double Jeopardy Clause, and it did not even have the benefit of full briefing or oral argument.” United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738, 754 n.4 (2005). In the more than a quarter of acentury since Watts, this Court’s jurisprudence has evolved to the point where this Court has made it clear that any fact that increases the penalty to which a defendant is exposed constitutes an element of a crime that must be found by a jury, not a judge. See Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 483, 490 (2000); see also Alleyne v. United States, 133 8. Ct. 2151, 2156 (2013); Cunningham v. California, 549 U.S. 270, 281 (2007). This petition thus raises the following question for review which calls into question the continued validity of this Court’s Watts decision: Whether a district court violates a defendant’s Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights by basing a substantial four-level sentencing enhancement on conduct for which a jury has acquitted the defendant? i INTERESTED PARTIES There are no