Punishing a defendant for acquitted crimes undermines the essential role of the jury. See e.g., Barry L. Johnson, The Puzzling Persistence of Acquitted Conduct in Federal Sentencing, and What Can Be Done About It, 49 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 1, 26 (2016); and Orhun Hakan Yalincak, Critical Analysis of Acquitted Conduct Sentencing in the U.S.: “Kafka-Esque,” “Repugnant,” “Uniquely Malevolent” and “Pernicious”?, 54 Santa Clara L. Rev. 675, 723 (2014). The use of acquitted crimes to calculate an initial Guidelines range deprives a defendant of his Sixth Amendment right to a sentence wholly authorized by the jury's verdict, from which a judge's authority to sentence derives. James J. Bilsborrow, Sentencing Acquitted Conduct to the Post-Booker Dustbin, 49 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 289, 333 (2007). The use of acquitted conduct in enhanced sentencing ignores the Court's unequivocal pronouncements in Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338 (2007), and again in Southern Union Co. v. United States, 132 S.Ct. 2344 (2012), that any sentence must be based solely upon the facts found by the jury or admitted by the defendant.The use of conduct of which a defendant was acquitted in the same trial to increase the sentencing Guidelines range violates the Sixth Amendment. A fact that increases a mandatory minimum sentence, no less than a fact that increases a maximum sentence, is an offense element that jurors must find beyond a reasonable doubt, because the Sixth Amendment does not allow a judge, absent a jury, to find any fact that “alter[s] the prescribed range of sentences to which a defendant is exposed and do[es] so in a manner that aggravates the punishment.” Alleyne v. United States, 133 S.Ct. 2151, 2161 n.2 (2013). Although advisory, the Guidelines continue to have “force as the framework for sentencing,” Peugh v. United States, 133 S.Ct. 2072, 2083 (2013), and are the “starting point and the initial benchmark” for all sentence determination, Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 49 (2007). Correct calculation of the Guidelines range is the required first step in sentencing a convicted defendant. Id. Improper calculation by including acquitted conduct rejected by the jury constitutes procedural error. Lower courts are bound by their post-Watts acquitted conduct precedent, even though the validity of those decisions is highly questionable in light of the Court’s more recent Sixth Amendment jurisprudence. This Court should exercise its prerogative and use this case to clarify that the Sixth Amendment does not permit the use of acquitted conduct to increase a defendant’s sentencing guidelines range.