Kagan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Thomas, and Sotomayor, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., and Thomas, J., filed concurring opinions. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg, J., joined. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
The Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) imposes a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence on a defendant convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm who also has three prior state or federal convictions “for a violent felony,” including “burglary, arson, or extortion.” 18 U. S. C. §§924(e)(1), (e)(2)(B)(ii). To determine whether a prior conviction is for one of those listed crimes, courts apply the “categorical approach”—they ask whether the elements of the offense forming the basis for the conviction sufficiently match the elements of the generic (or commonly understood) version of the enumerated crime. See Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575, 600–601. … But when a statute defines multiple crimes by listing multiple, alternative elements, the elements-matching required by the categorical approach is more difficult. … See, e.g., Shepard v. United States, 544 U. S. 13, 26. This case involves a different type of alternatively worded statute—one that defines only one crime, with one set of elements, but which lists alternative factual means by which a defendant can satisfy those elements.
Here, petitioner Richard Mathis pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Because of his five prior Iowa burglary convictions, the Government requested an ACCA sentence enhancement. …
The District Court applied the modified categorical approach, found that Mathis had burgled structures, and imposed an enhanced sentence. … Because the record showed that Mathis had burgled structures, the court held, the District Court’s treatment of Mathis’s prior convictions as ACCA predicates was proper.
Held: Because the elements of Iowa’s burglary law are broader than those of generic burglary, Mathis’s prior convictions cannot give rise to ACCA’s sentence enhancement. Pp. 7–19.
…This case is resolved by this Court’s precedents, which have repeatedly held, and in no uncertain terms, that a state crime cannot qualify as an ACCA predicate if its elements are broader than those of a listed generic offense. See, e.g., Taylor, 495 U. S., at 602. …
This Court’s cases establish three basic reasons for adhering to an elements-only inquiry. First, ACCA’s text, which asks only about a defendant’s “prior convictions,” indicates that Congress meant for the sentencing judge to ask only whether “the defendant had been convicted of crimes falling within certain categories,” id., at 600, not what he had done. Second, construing ACCA to allow a sentencing judge to go any further would raise serious Sixth Amendment concerns because only a jury, not a judge, may find facts that increase the maximum penalty. See Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466, 490. And third, an elements-focus avoids unfairness to defendants, who otherwise might be sentenced based on statements of “non-elemental fact[s]” that are prone to error because their proof is unnecessary to a conviction. Descamps v. United States, 570 U. S. ___, ___.
Those reasons remain as strong as ever when a statute, like Iowa’s burglary statute, lists alternative means of fulfilling one (or more) of a crime’s elements. … Accordingly, whether means are listed in a statute or not, ACCA does not care about them; rather, its focus, as always, remains on a crime’s elements. Pp. 7–16.
….
Because the elements of Iowa’s burglary law are broader than those of generic burglary, Mathis’s convictions under that law cannot give rise to an ACCA sentence. We accordingly reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. (786 F. 3d 1068, reversed.)
It is so ordered.