In Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), this Court held that the fact of a prior conviction was a "sentencing factor," not an "element," and thus need not be presented in the indictment, presented to the jury, or proved beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, Petitioner was indicted for—and pled guilty to—an offense with a statutory maximum punishment of only 10 years' imprisonment, but because the district court subsequently found a previous juvenile delinquency adjudication as a "sentencing factor," he was subjected to the Armed Career Criminal Act's enhanced punishment range of 15 years' to life imprisonment.

The first question presented, on which the federal appellate courts remain intractably divided, is whether the Almendarez-Torres "prior conviction" exception to the Sixth Amendment, as articulated in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), should be expanded to include prior juvenile delinquency adjudications.

The second question presented, which has been flagged for future consideration by this Court and by the federal appellate courts in numerous published opinions, is whether Almendarez-Torres has been abrogated by this Court's Sixth Amendment jurisprudence in Apprendi, Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 305-06 (2004), and Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99, 111 (2018).

Whether the Almendarez-Torres 'prior conviction' exception to the Sixth Amendment should be expanded to include prior juvenile delinquency adjudications