Commonwealth v. Richardson

In Bynum v. Commonwealth, 429 Mass. 705, 707, 709 (1999), we declared that, where the Legislature enacts a sentencing enhancement statute that provides for a longer sentence where a defendant convicted of the crime has one or more specified prior convictions, “[t]he prior offense is not an element of the crime for which a defendant is charged but concerns the punishment to be imposed if he is convicted . . . and the prior offense is proved.” We, therefore, concluded that the Legislature did not intend that two sentences be imposed, one for the underlying offense and a second for having…