Sentencing Law and Policy Web Log



Sentencing Law and Policy Web Log

Table of Contents

September 1, 2004 through Present (September 15, 2004)

Wednesday, September 15, 2004 1

Big Blakely rulings from the states 1

Numbers, please 2

Reconsidering shame 3

Martha Stewart speaks (on Blakely)!! 4

Circuit contrasts: variations in appellate justice 4

Death is different 6

An amicus brief on waiver 6

Tuesday, September 14, 2004 7

No decision (yet) in mandatory minimum case 7

Calling all data junkies!! 7

Wouldn't most sentences be lower if the guidelines are non-severable? 8

Sorting through non-severability concerns 9

Limiting the impact of Blakely in California 10

Covering all the bases 11

Monday, September 13, 2004 12

Big doings tomorrow 12

Surplusage split 12

An amicus report from the ACTL 13

Looking for Blakely-ized clerks? 13

Blakely from the California to the Carolinas... 13

Sunday, September 12, 2004 14

The SG's artful dodging on severability 14

Head-counting in an alternative universe 15

The future of mandatory minimums? 16

Saturday, September 11, 2004 17

USSC's views about severability?? 17

Ohio v. Scheer: a Rosetta Stone for sentencing reform? 18

Media analysis of Blakely 19

Friday, September 10, 2004 20

Be careful what you wish for 20

Different view of deep structural arguments 21

More big Blakely news from Colorado 22

Non-Blakely news from the First Circuit 23

Thursday, September 09, 2004 23

Gaining perspective 23

More on Hammoud and other Blakely news 24

Must stop, big day ahead... 24

The power of separation of powers? 25

"Statutory" analysis in Hammoud 26

So much to say, so much to say... 26

Wednesday, September 08, 2004 27

The 4th Circuit Speaks!! 27

Major Blakely ruling in Oregon 28

Pragmatism and Blakely's retroactivity 28

Blakely back in the headlines 29

Tuesday, September 07, 2004 30

Re-start your sentencings in Indiana 30

Mile High Blakely 30

Judging through the Blakely/blogsphere lens 31

The Blakely earthquake hits North Carolina 31

Pitch for a law-themed disaster movie? 32

While you were barbequing... 32

Monday, September 06, 2004 33

Pulp Fiction 33

Blakely, federalism, retroactivity and pragmatism 34

Great brief, wrong case: the three Senators' brief 35

Sunday, September 05, 2004 37

When did Judge Martin enter the Bizarro World? 37

Saturday, September 04, 2004 38

Texas-sized Blakely analysis 38

More on Blakely's retroactivity 39

Tennessee's functionality meets Blakely's formalism 40

Another possible Blakely front and great dicta 41

Friday, September 03, 2004 42

Judge Posner on blogging 42

First Circuit mutters!! 42

Complete SG Brief in Booker and Fanfan 43

Another interesting Ohio case 43

More thoughtful California analysis 44

Thursday, September 02, 2004 45

The Eleventh Circuit Speaks!! 45

Swing(ing) Justices? 46

The SG and Severability 47

Applying Blakely to the federal sentencing guidelines 47

What Booker and Fanfan are about (and not about) 48

And my commentary begins... 49

Wednesday, September 01, 2004 50

The judges' amicus brief 50

And the briefing begins... 50

Sex offender sentencing 51

First official Blakely reversal in California 52

What exactly are Blakely "facts"? 52

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Big Blakely rulings from the states

Federal courts have been relatively quiet on the Blakely front this week (perhaps because, as suggested here, federal judges are so busy sorting through piles of clerkship applications). But the state courts have been keeping Blakely busy; at least three consequential ruling from courts in California, Minnesota and Tennessee appeared on-line today:

From California, the court in People v. George, 2004 WL 2051167 (Cal. App. 4 Dist. Sept. 15, 2004), held that Blakely precluded the imposition of an upper term sentence, and rejected the government's claims that the defendant has waived the issue and that any Blakely error was harmless. Here's some key language:

[B]ecause Blakely was decided after George's sentencing, George cannot be said to have knowingly and intelligently waived his right to a jury trial....

Under California's determinate sentencing law, where a penal statute provides for three possible prison terms for a particular offense, the court is required to impose the middle term unless it finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the circumstances in aggravation outweigh the circumstances in mitigation. The Attorney General argues that the imposition of an upper term sentence under the California determinate sentencing scheme is not the same as the imposition of a penalty beyond the standard range and thus does not implicate Blakely. The attempted distinction, however, is one without a difference. Although an upper term is a "statutory maximum" penalty in the sense that it is the highest sentence a court can impose for a particular crime, it is not necessarily the "maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant," which is the relevant standard for purposes of applying Blakely....

Here, the trial court relied on five aggravating factors as the basis for its decision to impose the upper term, to wit, that (1) the crime was serious and involved threats of great bodily injury to the victims; (2) the crime involved planning, sophistication and professionalism; (3) the current offense was more serious than the offense underlying George's prior conviction, which was itself serious; (4) at the time George committed the current offenses, he was on felony probation; and (5) George's prior performance on probation was poor.... [W]e conclude that the trial court was constitutionally entitled to rely only on the fact that George was on probation at the time of the charged offense as a basis for imposing an upper term sentence. Because this fact arises out of the fact of a prior conviction and is so essentially analogous to the fact of a prior conviction, we conclude that constitutional considerations do not require that matter to be tried to a jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt.... Thus, in accordance with the analysis of Blakely, the trial court was not required to afford George the right to a jury trial before relying on his status as a probationer at the time of the current offense as an aggravating factor supporting the imposition of the upper term.

The Attorney General suggests that the propriety of this single factor as a basis for imposing an upper term sentence is sufficient to withstand George's constitutional challenge to the sentence.... [But] we cannot conclude that the elimination of four of the cited factors would not have made a difference in the court's sentencing decision here.... The matter is remanded for resentencing.

From Minnesota, the court in Minnesota v. Ingalls, 2004 WL 2050533 (Minn. App. Sept. 14, 2004), reserves the imposition of a "double-upward departure imposed by the district court." The court's ruling gets right to the point: "Like the sentencing departure in Blakely, the upward departure in this case is not based solely on facts reflected in a jury verdict or admitted by appellant; it is based on the district court's determination that aggravating factors were proved. Because the district court could not have considered whether basing appellant's sentence on these factors is permissible under Blakely, we remand for reconsideration of appellant's sentence in light of Blakely."

From Tennessee, the court in State v. Syler, 2004 WL 2039809 (Tenn. Crim. App. Sept. 13, 2004), explains that, though Blakely was "not raised by either party, we are constrained to address the Defendant's sentence in light of Blakely." And the impact is consequential:

The Blakely decision calls into question the validity of Tennessee's sentencing scheme, insofar as that scheme permits trial courts to increase a defendant's presumptive sentence based upon enhancement factors found by the trial judge.... The presumptive sentence for a standard offender convicted of a Class A felony is twenty years.... Here, the Defendant was sentenced to twenty-one years for each of his Class A felonies, one year above the presumptive sentence, based upon several enhancement and mitigating factors found by the trial court at the sentencing hearing....

The trial court enhanced the Defendant's sentences for the Class A felonies on the bases that the victim was "particularly vulnerable because of age or physical or mental disability," and the Defendant "abused a position of public or private trust." Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-114(5), (16). Neither of these enhancement factors is reflected in the jury's verdict, nor was either factor admitted by the Defendant. Pursuant to Blakely, the trial court's enhancement of the Defendant's sentences on these bases was therefore erroneous. See State v. Michael Wayne Poe, No. E2003-00417-CCA-R3-CD, 2004 WL 1607002, at *10 (Tenn.Crim.App., Knoxville, July 19, 2004) (holding that the rule in Blakely precludes application of enhancement factors (5) and (16) where they have not been submitted to the jury and have not been admitted by the defendant).

Pursuant to Blakely, the Defendant's sentences for his Class A felonies should not have been increased above the statutory presumptive sentence based upon statutory enhancement factors (5) and (16). Accordingly, we reduce the Defendant's sentences for his two Class A felonies from twenty-one years to twenty years.

September 15, 2004 at 10:06 PM

Numbers, please

The soon-to-be-released DPIC report about the administration of capital punishment and the number of innocent persons released from death row (background here) serves as another example of the potency of data and numbers. And, as I noted here, I believe views on key Blakely issues like severability and retroactivity may be greatly influenced by perceptions or suppositions about the number of cases possibly impacted by different sorts of rulings.

Though lots of sentencing numbers (both state and federal) might be important for examination and analysis, below I have indicated some data about which I am particularly curious in the run-up to Booker and Fanfan. I would be grateful if anyone with answers — or even ideas about how to find answers — would share what they know in the comments or in an e-mail to me.

1. Number of superceding federal indictments obtained since June 24, 2004. Note that this recent article is one of many I have seen suggesting that "Blakely-ized" indictments are common nationwide.

2. Number of federal sentences currently pending, i.e., "not final," (a) in toto, and (b) that have clear Blakely issues. Recall that Justice O'Connor reported in footnote 2 of her Blakely dissent that, on "March 31, 2004, there were 8,320 federal criminal appeals pending in which the defendant's sentence was at issue." But of course, this number represents just pending appeals, and the number of "not final" federal sentences must be larger. However, this number does not distinguish how many of cases have clear Blakely issues. That number might be much smaller.

3. Number of federal sentences "not final" as of June 27, 2000 when Apprendi decided (a) in toto, and (b) that have clear Blakely issues. Again recall that Justice O'Connor reported in footnote 2 of her Blakely dissent that between "June 27, 2000, when Apprendi was decided, and March 31, 2004, there have been 272,191 defendants sentenced in federal court." This number is only a rough (under)approximation of how many federal defendants might have claims if Blakely applies to the federal system and is made retroactive, but it is necessarily an overapproximation of how many past cases might have clear Blakely issues.

Of course, even if (when?) I get this sort of data, I will just want to repeat the data inquiry for each state sentencing system with Blakely issues. In the end, I cannot get over how thoughtful SCOTUS was to give us academics so many valuable research projects.

September 15, 2004 at 07:11 PM

Reconsidering shame

Last month, as discussed here, the Ninth Circuit in US v. Gementera, 2004 WL 1770101 (9th Cir. Aug. 9, 2004), upheld a sentence which, as a condition of supervised release, required convicted mail thief Gementera "to spend a day standing outside a post office wearing a signboard stating, 'I stole mail. This is my punishment.'" And, as detailed here, attorney Dan Markel has been a thoughtful critic of the Ninth Circuit's endorsement of shaming punishments since Gementera was handed down.

Dan has now completed a "working draft" of an "Amici Curiae Brief of Law Professors Submitted on Behalf of Appellant Shawn Gementera's Petition for Rehearing with Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc." Upon Dan's request, I am happy to post his draft brief (available to download below) to help Dan "collect signatories from criminal law/constitutional law professors who might be interested in the position." Dan has indicated he will have an updated version of the draft "by Sunday or so," and he encourages people interested in signing on (or in sharing comments) to email him directly at dmarkel@.

As indicated in comments here, my own views on shaming punishments are mixed and thus I am looking forward to giving this thoughtful brief a close read.

Download draft_gementera_amicus_brief.pdf

September 15, 2004 at 04:28 PM

Martha Stewart speaks (on Blakely)!!

Well, the headline above may be a bit misleading, but according to this NY Times/AP story, Martha Stewart has decided to surrender for prison as soon as possible in order to "put this nightmare behind me and get on with my life."

Blakely nuts like me of course recall that, as discussed here, Judge Cedarbaum had cited Blakely when granting Martha's application for a stay of sentence pending appeal. According to the NY Times/AP story, Martha's lawyer Walter Dellinger "said he still believed she had a chance to win a reversal of her conviction [but he] had asked a federal judge to withdraw the stay of her sentencing pending appeal."

I cannot help but speculate about what sort of Blakely-related advice Martha received. I would guess that, despite my musings here and here, Martha's lawyers sensibly concluded it was unlikely Martha would be able, because of Blakely, to do a lot better at any resentencing. Or, to be more precise, Martha's lawyers probably said that she likely could serve her 10 months and be free before the all the questions surrounding federal sentencing law would be resolved. Thus, the case stands as another example of a point Jason Hernandez made here last month: many defendants are as interested in certainty as leniency; like Martha, they just want to do their time and be done with it.

September 15, 2004 at 01:49 PM

Circuit contrasts: variations in appellate justice

As detailed in the three Senators' amicus brief filed in Booker and Fanfan (available here, commentary here), guideline reforms sought to "eliminate the intolerable disparities that had plagued the federal sentencing system." Yet today we have stunning disparities in the application of the federal guidelines in the wake of Blakely. Even putting aside all the noted variations from district to district and case to case, on the circuit level alone on just the most basic Blakely question we have a five-way circuit split:

1. Blakely has been deemed, at least for the time being, wholly inapplicable to the federal guidelines in the Second, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuits;

2. Blakely has been deemed, at least for the time being, inapplicable to the federal guidelines, but an order recommending the announcement of an alternative sentence is in place in the Fourth and Sixth Circuits;

3. Blakely has been deemed applicable to the federal guidelines, but severability questions have been left open, in the Seventh Circuit;

4. Blakely has been deemed applicable to the federal guidelines and the guidelines deemed severable in the Ninth Circuit; and

5. Blakely's impact on the federal guidelines is presently unresolved in the First, Third, Eighth, Tenth and DC Circuits.

And beyond these critical basics, there are and surely will continue to be variable rulings on "smaller" Blakely questions like plain error, waiver, restitution, indictment practices and so on and so on (see general background here and here and here)

Moreover, as all good lawyers know, circuit differences are reflected not only in doctrine, but also in attitude. Indeed, I sometimes perceive a certain tone in some Blakely rulings, and this tone often varies from circuit to circuit. Two cases handed down yesterday perhaps provide an example of what I mean.

In US v. Pree, 2004 WL 2039274 (7th Cir. Sept. 14, 2004), the Seveth Circuit seems to go to extraordinary lengths to preserve a Blakely claim for a defendant who did not even raise it:

As a final matter, we address an issue not raised by the parties — the constitutionality of the sentencing enhancement Ms. Pree received for obstruction of justice. Ms. Pree's case was briefed and argued prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely [and this court's holding] in Booker that enhancements imposed by the court without a jury finding violate the Sixth Amendment.

Ms. Pree does not address to this court, nor can we find evidence in the record to indicate, that she addressed before the district court the constitutionality of her sentencing enhancement. In light of the sea change in federal sentencing law wrought by Blakely and Booker, we think it appropriate to take note of the possibility of an unconstitutional sentencing enhancement. Given the precedent in this circuit prior to Blakely, we think it would be unfair to characterize Ms. Pree as having waived a challenge to the validity of her sentencing enhancement.

The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Booker and will consider, in the very near future, the application of Blakely to the United States Sentencing Guidelines and therefore the correctness of this court's decision in Booker. We therefore shall stay our mandate in this case until the Supreme Court has rendered its decision in Booker. Within fourteen days of the Supreme Court's decision in Booker, each party may submit a memorandum presenting its views on the application of that decision to this case.

[Footnote 17. It appears that Ms. Pree's enhanced sentence will be completed prior to the decision of the Supreme Court. Any matter with respect to bail should be addressed to the district court.]

But in Burrell v. US, 2004 WL 2039420 (2d Cir. Sept. 14, 2004), the Second Circuit seems to go to extraordinary lengths in a footnote to extinguish an arguable Blakely claim:

Despite the district court's failure to award a certificate of appealability on the Apprendi point, Burrell argues it in a pro se supplemental brief filed with this court. We may, of course, amend a COA to include an issue not certified by the district court ... [but we] decline to do that in this case because (1) Burrell's Apprendi claim is foreclosed by our [prior Apprendi] decisions ... which we have recently declined to reconsider despite the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely; (2) even if Burrell could establish an Apprendi error in his case, the law is clear that Apprendi cannot be applied retroactively on a collateral challenge to a conviction; and (3) an Apprendi error would, in any event, be harmless in this case because it would not result in the reversal of Burrell's conviction, only resentencing, since (a) he has completed serving the originally imposed term of incarceration, and (b) it is the fact of his conviction not the length of his sentence that now affects his deportation.

Of course, the defendant in Pree obviously has a much, much stronger case on the merits than the defendant in Burrell, and different circuits might have made similar rulings in each individual case. But I do think these cases help highlight the possibility that general attitudes about Blakely claims may impact future cases as much as the intricacies of certain doctrines.

September 15, 2004 at 11:56 AM

Death is different

Adam Liptak has another potent article discussing data soon to be released by the Death Penalty Information Center documenting a steep decline in death sentences in the United States in recent years. Here are some key passages from the article:

The Death Penalty Information Center, which is to release the report tomorrow, attributes the decline largely to growing public awareness of death-row exonerations and concerns that innocent people might be sentenced to die.... In 2003, there were 143 death sentences issued, the fewest since 1977, the year after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

"This is the single most interesting fact about the death penalty in the United States in the last two or three decades," said James S. Liebman, a law professor at Columbia and an expert on capital punishment....

The report's description of the decline in death sentences is based largely on data from the Justice Department and is not disputed by supporters of the death penalty. But the report's thesis — that exonerations play a major role — as well as its data on the number of people exonerated are the subject of debate.

The rest of the NY Times article discusses disputes over the exact number of innocent people who have been released from death row and also examines other possible causes for the decline in death sentences.

I will post a link to the DPIC report when it is available. Obviously the report will provide quite significant information about the administration of capital punishment. But it also serves as a useful reminder of the different factors that can influence jury sentencing.

UPDATE: The DPIC has released this press release about its forthcoming report, and also to be found on the DPIC website is this executive summary of the report which is entitled "Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty." As indicated in these materials, the full report will be available on the DPIC website on September 20, 2004.

September 15, 2004 at 09:14 AM

An amicus brief on waiver

Yesterday I received a final copy of an amicus brief filed in support of the respondents in Booker and Fanfan. (I suspect that this will be the first of many such amicus briefs; I speculated with my class yesterday that there might be as many as a dozen amicus filings in support of the respondents.)

This first amicus was filed by the Office of the Federal Public Defender in the Northern District of Texas, and interestingly it does not directly address a specific issue before the Supreme Court in Booker and Fanfan. Rather, as the brief explains, it is addressed to "the issue of whether a simple admission of facts, other than the fact of a prior conviction, can function as a waiver of constitutional rights." The brief was needed, explains the author, because it "appears from the caselaw, commentary, and the known positions of the parties that this important issue will not be addressed."

The brief, which can be downloaded below, is an interesting read. Here is the conclusion, which sums up the brief's main points well:

Blakely, citing Apprendi, discussing Almendarez-Torres does not support the proposition that a defendant can waive constitutional rights by simply admitting facts, which are not facts related to a prior conviction, that increase the relevant statutory maximum sentence. Any such statement is contrary to this Court’s precedent. The defendant, however, can admit facts in conjunction with a valid waiver of enumerated rights that will allow the judge to increase the relevant statutory maximum sentence. As part of this procedure, the sentencing court must fully inform the defendant of the rights being waived and the results of such a waiver. Only then will a defendant knowingly and voluntarily have waived constitutional and statutory rights....

The bottom line is that the application of Blakely to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, when combined with admitted facts and valid waivers, will result in defendants actually receiving the guideline range that they bargained for: this would be real "truth in sentencing."

Download bookerblakely_waiver_amicus.pdf

September 15, 2004 at 06:50 AM

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

No decision (yet) in mandatory minimum case

According to the folks at Families Against Mandatory Minimums, US District Judge Paul Cassell (D. Utah) tonight announced that he would "take arguments under advisement" in the case of Weldon Angelos, the 25-year-old record producer who faces 63 years in prison for a first offense of marijuana dealing primarily because of federal mandatory minimum sentences (background here). More details about the case and Judge Cassell's (non)ruling can be found in the FAMM press release below.

Download angelos_decision_deferred.doc

September 14, 2004 at 09:20 PM

Calling all data junkies!!

The more I think about issues like severability and retroactivity, the more I realize a lot of my thinking (and perhaps also the thinking of courts and litigants) is influenced by perceptions or suppositions about the number of cases possibly impacted by different sorts of rulings. To its credit, the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission gave us some real (though perhaps shaded) numbers about how many cases Blakely would likely impact in that state (see Ron's post here), but I have not seen anything comparable from the federal sentencing commission or other state entities. And, of course, I have not seen any effort to run the Blakely "retroactivity" numbers in any single jurisdiction or across all jurisdictions.

Of course, the US Sentencing Commission has terrific general data on its website concerning various guideline related matters. For example, here is a chart of the number of federal offenders of various offense types in the federal system in recent years, here is a chart of guilty pleas and trial rates, and here is a chart of federal offenders receiving different sentencing options in each primary offense category, and here is a chart of the position within the guideline range for offenders in each primary offense category.

I am not quite sure if and how any of this data can or should directly or indirectly impact arguments about Blakely's applicability to the federal guidelines or issues of severability. But I am sure that I would like to here from any and all data junkies out there who have been looking at real numbers while I have been focused on matters of policy and doctrine.

September 14, 2004 at 05:39 PM

Wouldn't most sentences be lower if the guidelines are non-severable?

As detailed in this recent post, I am worried about some potentially peculiar and problematic consequences of a ruling that the federal guidelines are (partially or totally) not severability. Moreover, though in this seemingly long-ago post I posited that the severability debate is a tussle between concerns about lawlessness and leniency, I am now thinking that, if the SG's non-severability argument prevails, we will have a federal sentencing world that is both lawless and lenient.

As noted before, the SG's advocacy of non-severability seems driven principally by a concern that some defendants "could receive a sentencing windfall," SG brief at 68, if the guidelines were deemed severable. But won't (many?) defendants be able to receive a bigger windfall if the guidelines are declared non-severable (especially if the guidelines become inapplicable in all cases)? I suspect that most federal judges agree with Justice Kennedy's assertion to the ABA last year that "[o]ur resources are misspent, our punishments too severe, our sentences too long ... [and thus the] Federal Sentencing Guidelines should be revised downward." If so, won't most federal judges go even lower without any guideline constraints than if constrained by the guidelines applied in a Blakely-compliant way?

Consider, for example, the Booker facts before the Supreme Court. With the guidelines severable and still partially binding, Booker must get at least 210 months. But with the guidelines non-severable and just advisory — though with the SRA's mandate in 18 USC 3553(a) that a judge "impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes" of punishment — Booker could receive a sentence as low as 120 months.

Alternatively, consider Martha Stewart's case. First, if the guidelines are completely non-severable in all cases (as two district judges have held), she has a right to resentencing; at resentencing she would have a reasonable argument that the SRA's requirement of "a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary," would call for a sentence with no jail time. Second, even if the guidelines are deemed non-severable only in cases with Blakely factors, Martha's lawyers might claim now that her case involves a Blakely factor so she can argue for a lower sentence under the government's non-severability theory.

Finally, consider the interesting and potent arguments made in a recent brief that I received (and provide for downloading below) that established due process and ex post facto doctrines preclude a judge from "retroactively increasing the potential penalty from the applicable Guidelines range to the statutorily prescribed maximum." In other words, constitutional doctrines may preclude judges from imposing harsher sentences if freed from guideline constraints — i.e., judges only discretion in a "non-severed guidelines world" may be to be more lenient (which, of course, may be what they really want to do anyway).

Download blakelybrooks_severability_memorandum.pdf

After I get through all this headache causing analysis, I come to wonder whether defense attorneys might in the end argue for non-severability, too, in Booker and Fanfan.

September 14, 2004 at 01:59 PM

Sorting through non-severability concerns

The Solicitor General's brief in Booker and Fanfan does a fine job establishing that neither Congress nor the US Sentencing Commission expected or intended the federal guidelines to incorporate the sort of jury fact-finding that Blakely now suggests is constitutionally required. However, by ducking nearly all the tough severability issues (as explained here), the SG's brief fails to confront or even acknowledge the many potential problems that its non-severability argument presents.

Indeed, the more I think through the issue, the more I am concerned that adoption of the SG's non-severability claims will create far more chaos and uncertainty (and also perhaps more lenient sentences) than a severability ruling. Though I may need a series of posts to explain my concerns, let me try here to start spotlighting some of these issues:

1. What happens in cases without Blakely factors? As noted before, the SG brief ducks the question of whether, if Blakely applies to the federal guidelines, the guidelines can and should still apply in federal sentencing cases that do not raise any "Blakely factors." If the Supreme Court does not speak to this issue, lower courts will be at sea — and likely will make contradictory rulings — about the applicability of the guidelines in "Blakely-free" cases. Moreover, if the guidelines are still to apply in cases without Blakely factors, might we start seeing defendants claiming that their cases involve Blakely factors in order to try to escape the guidelines' strictures (e.g., might Martha Stewart claim that her case really does involve a Blakely factor so she can argue now for a lower sentence under the government's non-severability theory)?

2. How can and should sentencing with advisory guidelines proceed? The SG says that, if and when the guidelines "fall as a whole," then the guidelines "would remain as advisory factors for the court to consider." SG Brief at 66-67. But, practically speaking, how would sentencing proceed in federal courts with the guidelines wholly and only advisory?

In such a guideline-advisory world, would probation officers still create presentence reports (PSR) with guideline calculations or should sentencing courts relieve probation officers of this responsibility? Or, perhaps more critically, could a court to aid its discretionary sentencing decision order a probation officer to investigate a broad range of issues — e.g., drug dependency, lack of guidance as a youth — that are not generally pertinent in guidelines sentencing?

And assuming PSRs still contained guideline calculations (which seems critical if the guidelines are to be advisory), would prosecutors and defense attorneys be able to contest, either factually or legally, aspects of the PSR's guideline determinations? Would and should a probation officer and a sentencing judge consider common downward departure arguments — e.g., extraordinary family circumstances, aberrant behavior — in the context of the established departure jurisprudence, or should judges just be completely free to consider these factors as they see fit?

3. What happens to appellate review? Even if the Supreme Court determines that appellate review continues despite the guidelines being non-severable, how will appellate review proceed in cases in which the guidelines are only advisory? The SRA's appellate review provision, 18 USC 3742, does provide for "plainly unreasonable" review when "there is no sentencing guideline." But what will that mean in a world with advisory guidelines? Would a defendant be able to raise claims about a PSR's guideline determinations if a non-guidelines sentence was based on "advisory" guideline calculations in the PSR? Can the defendant base appellate claims on the other provisions of the SRA that the government (at SG brief p. 67) claims are still operative —including the requirement of 18 USC 3553(a) that a judge "impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes" of punishment specified in the SRA (emphasis added)?

Because the SG's brief does not even begin to grapple with these questions, I wonder if the government has completely thought through all the consequences of a (partial or total) ruling on non-severability. I am quite worried that an excessive concern that a few defendants "could receive a sentencing windfall," SG brief at 68, has led the SG to advocate a position on non-severability that might actually create many, many more problems than it solves. In addition, as I will explain in a subsequent post, I actually think there is a much bigger risk that more defendants "could receive a sentencing windfall" if the guidelines are declared non-severable than if they are declared severable.

September 14, 2004 at 11:15 AM

Limiting the impact of Blakely in California

Just as most of the federal circuit courts seem to be doing their best to limit the Blakely fallout in the federal system (at least until Booker and Fanfan are decided), the California intermediate appellate courts are working hard to keep Blakely from disrupting too many California sentences. The latest case in point is People v. Sample, 2004 WL 2027285 (Cal. App. 3 Dist. Sept. 13, 2004), in which the court asserts on every possible ground that the defendant's Blakely claim is unavailing:

Defendant did not raise an Apprendi objection in the trial court, and factors used in imposing the upper term and consecutive sentencing were uncontested at trial and supported by overwhelming evidence. Hence, defendant is barred from raising the claim of Apprendi/Blakely error.

In any event, the rule of Apprendi and Blakely does not apply to California's consecutive sentencing scheme, and imposition of the upper term here was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

Similarly, in two unpublished opinions last week, two different California intermediate appellate courts gave the "prior conviction" exception a broad reading and application to affirm sentences that are arguably Blakely problematic. See People v. Bushnell, 2004 WL 2011414 (Cal. App. 2 Dist. Sept. 10, 2004); People v. Som, 2004 WL 1966058 (Cal. App. 3 Dist. Sept. 07, 2004).

Among other realities, these decisions highlight the mess that Blakely has created for state sentencing systems. They also spotlight the question of whether state courts will be able to effectively clean up state Blakely messes on their own, or will need the Supreme Court to soon address issues like the "prior conviction" exception and the applicability of Blakely to consecutive sentencing in order to bring order and normalcy back to state sentencing.

September 14, 2004 at 08:17 AM

Covering all the bases

In an interesting twist on the alternative sentencing idea (previously detailed here and here), the Seventh Circuit in US v. Schaefer, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 19166 (7th Cir. Sept. 13, 2004), recently decided that "[a]lthough Blakely and Booker necessitate our remand of this case to the district court for resentencing, we will nonetheless address Schaefer's arguments under the Guidelines ... in the interest of judicial economy in the event that the Supreme Court may subsequently decide some other fate for the federal Guidelines than that indicated in Booker."

After some thoughtful but fairly standard pre-Blakely analysis, the Seventh Circuit holds that the case is remanded due to Booker, but "in the event that the Supreme Court decides that Blakely does not invalidate the federal sentencing Guidelines, we affirm" Schaefer's sentence. And at the very end of its ruling, the Seventh Circuit drops this interesting footnote:

Schaefer has also requested immediate release under bond from incarceration, since he has already served what would presumably be his sentence if the Guidelines are invalid. Based on the present state of the law in this circuit, this seems to be a meritorious request, but we leave this decision to the district court on remand. In this regard, the district court might wish to take note of Schaefer's earlier positions in this case with respect to unchallenged aspects of his sentence. See Booker, 375 F.3d at 510 (interpreting Blakely to allow sentences to be imposed based on "what the jury found or the defendant admitted or, as here, did not contest") (emphasis added).

September 14, 2004 at 12:13 AM

Monday, September 13, 2004

Big doings tomorrow

Though it seems like every day is a big day since Blakely, tomorrow brings two events of special note. First, as discussed here with more background here, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon in Utah is the sentencing of Weldon Angelos, a 25-year-old record producer who faces 63 years in prison for a first offense of marijuana dealing primarily because of federal mandatory minimum sentences. I have received a notice that Families Against Mandatory Minimums is planning a media event immediately following the sentencing hearing, with all sorts of notable participants. Details can be found in the press release below.

Download advisoryangelos_final.pdf

Also tomorrow, on the other side of the country, the public policy groups Watching Justice and the Constitution Project are hosting in Washington DC "an interactive panel discussion" compellingly titled "Blakely, the Kennedy Commission, and Beyond: The Future of State and Federal Sentencing Policies." Basic details about the event can be accessed at this link, and a fuller account of the event and of the all-star cast of participants can be downloaded below.

Download WatchingJusticeBlakleyEvent.pdf

September 13, 2004 at 07:45 PM

Surplusage split

As previously discussed here, last week in US v. Mutchler, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18053 (S.D. Iowa, Sept. 09, 2004), District Judge Robert Pratt granted a defense motion to strike allegations of aggravating factors in a "Blakely-ized" superseding indictment. But around the same time, in US v. Baert, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17911 (D. Maine Sept. 8, 2004), District Judge Brock Hornby (of Fanfan fame) refused to strike allegations pertinent to sentencing because his interpretation of Blakely requires the government to "include such allegations in order to obtain what it considers an appropriate sentence" under the guidelines.

In short, we have an understandable, but still significant, "surplusage split."

And, interestingly, I also recently discovered that US District Judge Robert W. Gettleman, in US v. Brown, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17835 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 13, 2004), granted "defendant's motion to dismiss indictment or, alternatively, to strike surplusage from indictment in part" based on the government's addition of "sentencing allegations" in a superceding indictment. But, in the same order, Judge Gettleman granted, over the defendant's "vigorous" objection, the government's motion "to continue the trial date from August 16, 2004, to a date in the future after the court receives guidance from the US Supreme Court in US v. Booker and US v. Fanfan." Based on the surplusage skirmish, I will leave it to others to figure out who won the battle and who won the war in Brown.

September 13, 2004 at 05:39 PM

An amicus report from the ACTL

As I discussed here, I find it ironic that in Booker and Fanfan many questionable arguments are being made in an effort to "save" from Blakely perhaps the only guideline system that does not deserve saving. Additional proof that the federal sentencing system does not deserve saving landed in my mailbox this morning in the form of a report from the American College of Trial Lawyers, which is tellingly titled "United States Sentencing Guidelines 2004: An Experiment That Has Failed."

This press release from ACTL provides background on the substance of the report and the Task Force that wrote it . Though not in the form of an amicus brief, I think the report (available for downloaded below) — which was written by a group with members "who represent all branches of the legal profession involved in the administration of criminal justice" including "sitting and former federal judges, current and former prosecutors and defense counsel" — should be required reading for everyone thinking about Booker, Fanfan, and the future of federal sentencing.Download actl_failed_ussg_report.pdf

September 13, 2004 at 12:09 PM

Looking for Blakely-ized clerks?

As discussed before here, the clerkship hiring season has officially begun, and rumor has it that federal judges are starting to arrange and conduct interviews. (Here you can get a sense of applicants' feelings as they seek what I still consider the greatest job to be had out of law school).

As this hiring process kicks into warp speed, I wonder if judges, both federal and state, are looking for clerks who have been "Blakely-ized." Since Blakely is the biggest legal story of the summer — with analogies drawn by others to cases like Brown and Roe — I would expect any serious applicant to be familiar with the decision and its aftermath.

But might at least some federal and state judges be looking for a lot of Blakely knowledge in a clerk, since Blakely issues are sure to be occupying courts for years to come no matter what the decision in Booker and Fanfan? Needless to say, any and every Ohio State applicant who crossed my path in the last few months has been fully Blakely-ized (and we all know how painful that can be).

September 13, 2004 at 10:59 AM

Blakely from the California to the Carolinas...

Coast to coast, everyone is grappling with the Blakely fallout. The latest news on the state of Blakely in California can be found in this article, while this quite thoughtful piece reviews the state of the post-Blakely world in North Carolina. Both articles highlight the dramatic and uncertain impact that Blakely is having on state sentencing systems.

Meanwhile, I was unable to turn off my Blakely brain this weekend, and thus you will find, on state law topics, weekend posts of note on additional media coverage, and on a fascinating Ohio case.

On the federal sentencing front, I have noteworthy posts on mandatory minimums, on alternative sentencing and on the guidelines' severability here and here.

September 13, 2004 at 07:17 AM

Sunday, September 12, 2004

The SG's artful dodging on severability

Though the Solicitor General's arguments about the federal guidelines' severability are much more in touch with reality than some of its arguments about Blakely's applicability to the federal guidelines, what stands out most in the SG's treatment of severability is the dodging of some of the toughest issues. I suppose I should be thankful that the SG did not avoid the severability question altogether, as has the US Sentencing Commission, but the Supreme Court surely would benefit from a fuller analysis of all of the tough and critical severability questions it faces in Booker and Fanfan.

First, as noted before here, the SG brief completely ducks the question of whether, if Blakely applies to the federal guidelines, the guidelines can and should still apply in federal sentencing cases that do not raise any "Blakely factors." Recall that at least two federal judges have held that, if the guidelines are wholly inapplicable in some cases, then they are wholly inapplicable in all federal cases. Meanwhile, as detailed here, at least one Commissioner has opined that only one in five federal cases have Blakely issues. Whatever the true number, "lower courts will be in desparate need of guidance" (SG Brief at 43) about how to handle "Blakely-free" cases if SCOTUS applies Blakely to the federal guidelines.

Second, though the SG highlights that severability is an issue of statutory construction and legislative intent, the brief does not dig into all the challenging implications of these realities. For example, as I suggested here, perhaps the rule of lenity has some applicability in this setting, but the SG does not mention the doctrine at all.

In addition, the SG does not address which Congress's intent matters in assessing severability. (I previously noted here the intrigue of this question given that the 1984 Congress passed the Sentencing Reform Act (SRA), but the 1987 Congress approved the initial federal guidelines, while the 2003 Congress directly amended the guidelines in the PROTECT Act, and Congresses (Congri?) from 1988 through 2004 continued to approve/authorize the current guidelines and amendments thereto). The "which Congress" question seems consequential since, as noted here, the Congress that passed the SRA was primarily focused on remedying lawlessness, while more recent Congresses have shown a particular concern about perceived leniency.

Finally, since the SG contends that the SRA is severable by arguing that the provisions of 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) would still govern federal sentencing even if Blakely is applicable to the federal guidelines, see SG Brief at 67, I suppose it is understandable that the SG does not address the continued validity of sentencing appeals or supervised release or the abolition of parole or other fundamental features of the SRA. Nevertheless, as noted here, the broadest claim of non-severability raises a host of critical, practical issues not even acknowledged by the SG.

September 12, 2004 at 06:34 PM

Head-counting in an alternative universe

Judge Wilkins majority's opinion for the Fourth Circuit in Hammoud (available here and commentary here) includes a brief explanation for the Circuit's recommendation that district judges "announce, at the time of sentencing, a sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C.A. § 3553(a), treating the guidelines as advisory only." This explanation helps me understand a bit better why a majority of the Fourth Circuit believes that "announcing — not imposing — a non-guidelines sentence at the time of sentencing will serve judicial economy," even though the court recognizes that the "announcement of a non-guidelines sentence may require the district court to consider issues not generally pertinent in guidelines sentencing, thereby requiring the investment of additional time at the sentencing hearing."

But, like other aspects of the Hammoud decision, the alternative sentencing explanation leaves me with more questions than answers. First, in light of the Fourth Circuit's recommendation, shouldn't the disposition of the Hammoud case been a remand for the announcement of an alternative sentence? Wouldn't it be useful, to paraphrase the Fourth Circuit, for "the district court and the parties [to make] at least substantial progress toward the determination of a non-guidelines sentence [in Hammoud's case], at a time when the facts and circumstances [are still] clearly in mind"?

Second, Judge Widener's dissent to the "alternative sentence" portion of the Hammoud ruling asserts that "even if the recommended advisory sentencing is discretionary, about which I have some doubt, in my opinion, it is inadvisable." This statement and the majority's discussion raises, but does not answer, the question of whether district courts may lawfully refuse to follow the alternative sentencing recommendation. May Judge Goodwin continue to refuse to impose alternative sentences (as thoughtfully explained here), or must he now get in line? The Hammoud majority's oblique footnote addressing Judge Goodwin's serious concerns about alternative sentencing does not answer this question. And since Ron reported here that most district judges in the Fourth Circuit have not been announcing alternative sentences, this is a question that may be on the minds of many district judges in the Fourth Circuit.

Finally, I have a distinct empirical/practical question: Is anyone keeping track of how many and what sorts of alternative sentences have been announced in the Fourth Circuit and elsewhere after Blakely? I hope and expect the US Sentencing Commission is collecting this data, and the recent memo from the Judicial Conference Criminal Law Committee discussed here suggests that the federal Bureau of Prisons might also be tracking these issues. Recall also that DOJ through the Comey memo (available here) urged its prosecutors to seek alternative sentences and indicated it would be collecting lots of data during this chaotic period.

Whomever may be keeping track of alternative sentencing data, I sincerely hope that this data can be systematically tallied and made available to the public as soon as possible. I think I can fairly speak for the academic and research community when I say that many academics and researchers will have an interest in examining and analyzing alternative sentencing data.

September 12, 2004 at 04:32 PM

The future of mandatory minimums?

Adam Liptak has this terrific article in today's NY Times about the upcoming sentencing of Weldon Angelos, a 25-year-old record producer, who faces 63 years in prison for a first offense of marijuana dealing primarily because of federal mandatory minimum sentences.

Sadly, the case may not be all that unusual on the facts, but it is making headlines because Utah US District Judge Paul Cassell raised questions about the constitutionality of mandatory minimum sentences in the Angelos case back in February, and he directed defense attorneys and federal prosecutors to file briefs on the issue. And, as previously detailed here, among the briefs filed on Angelos' behalf was an amicus effort by a group 29 former legal officials — including former US attorneys, federal judges, and a former US attorney general — arguing that his sentence would be unconstitutional on various ground (most specifically as a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments).

The Angelos case is fascinating on its own terms for many reasons, especially because Judge Cassell in his short tenure on the bench has already shown his capacity and courage to address sentencing issues in dynamic and dynamite ways. I hope Judge Cassell can and will issue a quick and powerful decision in Angelos that helps frame the future legal and policy debate over mandatory minimums (just as he framed the federal debate over Blakely through his brilliant Croxford opinion).

But as the NY Times article astutely notes, the Angelos case and the status of mandatory minimums in the federal system is even more important now both legally and politically in the wake of Blakely:

The Angelos case may provide a glimpse of the future.... The Supreme Court will decide whether to strike down the sentencing guidelines after it hears arguments in October, and some legislators are already signaling their preference for more mandatory minimums if the guidelines are deemed unconstitutional.

At a hearing in July on legislation that would increase drug sentences, Representative Howard Coble, Republican of North Carolina, said, "It seems clear that mandatory minimums may well take on added importance in assuring appropriate sentences for serious federal crimes as a result of the Supreme Court's actions."

Ronald H. Weich, a former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee who opposes mandatory minimums, said they had a political constituency. "There is a real danger," Mr. Weich said, "that we're heading back to mandatory minimums if guidelines are unconstitutional."

Sadly, I got the eery feeling when in DC last week that many folks inside the Beltway fear it is inevitable that the striking down of the federal guidelines in Booker and Fanfan would lead to congressional passage of additional mandatory minimums, even though all thoughtful observers recognize, in the words of Justice Kennedy, that "[i]n too many cases, mandatory minimum sentences are unwise and unjust." Indeed, I believe this fear best explains the curious briefs filed by the USSC and the former judges and the Senators seeking to defend a federal sentencing system that they know is flawed, perhaps deeply flawed, in many respects.

Though a fear of Congress' (over)reaction to the striking down of the federal guidelines is understandable and perhaps even justifiable, for now I am going to hold on to my (naive?) optimism that meaningful sentencing reform after Blakely is possible. I really want to believe that, if thoughtful judges like Kennedy and Cassell keep speaking the truth about our current federal sentencing system, our elected representatives will care enough about good government (and not just about campaign rhetoric) to really try to do better.

September 12, 2004 at 10:23 AM

Saturday, September 11, 2004

USSC's views about severability??

After many brief-related posts on the applicability of Blakely to the federal sentencing guidelines (see, e.g., posts here and here and here; see also Hammoud post here), this weekend I am starting to focus on the Booker and Fanfan briefs' approach to the even tougher issue of severability.

Though a lot more severability analysis will follow in this space (and follow-up my preliminary discussion here), my first observation here concerns the disconcerting absence of any severability analysis or discussion in the US Sentencing Commission's brief. The USSC's brief stresses it is an "independent" agency which spends all its time and energy analyzing sentencing decisions and data (cf. Jason Hernandez's effective post examining the USSC's brief). Given its own claims about its institutional role and work, the USSC should have the most informed and the most thoughtful perspective on the guidelines' ability to operate without judicial fact-finding of sentence enhancing facts. At the very least, one would hope and expect the USSC could figure out, and would make public, roughly how many federal sentences turn on judicial fact-finding of sentence enhancing facts. (Recall that, as detailed here, at least one Commissioner has publically opined that ''eighty percent of the cases in the whole country are unaffected" by Blakely.)

Moreover, the Solicitor General's brief asserts that "the severability analysis must take into account the intent of the Sentencing Commission." SG Brief at 45-46. If this is so, shouldn't we hear the intent of the USSC straight from the USSC? The SG's brief makes a number of representations about the Commission's intent, but remember that the SG is a party in Booker and Fanfan with a necessarily biased perspective on such issues.

My guess is, based in part on this report from Tony Mauro, that the USSC could not internally reach a consensus view on the tough issue of severability (or, dare I suggest the possibility, perhaps the USSC is working on a brief in support of the respondents on this issue). But, whatever the realities surrounding the USSC's legal (non)position on severability, I think the USSC undermines its own description of its institutional role and work if it does not soon disseminate at least some preliminary data about how many federal sentences in fact turn on judicial fact-finding of sentence enhancing facts.

September 11, 2004 at 06:54 PM

Ohio v. Scheer: a Rosetta Stone for sentencing reform?

I have previously discussed at length the fascinating challenges of figuring out what Blakely's formal rule might mean for Ohio's functional sentencing laws (see posts here and here and here). Yesterday, I found an intermediate Ohio appellate court decision, Ohio v. Scheer, 2004 WL 2008628 (Ohio App. 4 Dist. Sept. 1, 2004), which is fascinating for both Blakely and non-Blakely reasons. (Strangely, the decision is dated September 1, but only first appeared on-line yesterday.)

Though a fairly run-of-the-mill case, I think Scheer could be seen as a Rosetta Stone of sentencing reform. So many insights might be drawn from the case's facts and the court's ruling, careful study of the decision could, like the famed stone of Rosetta which helped scholars better understand the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphics (background here and here), help scholars better understand the dynamics and challenges of modern sentencing reform. Let me try to explain.

Scheer involved appeal of a "sentence to the maximum, consecutive term of twelve months imprisonment for each of two counts of passing bad checks." Those familiar with Ohio law already can see how the case raises at least two Blakely issues, since a sentencing judge in Ohio must make certain findings before imposing a maximum term and also before imposing consecutive sentences. Adding to the intrigue, Scheer's two conviction followed a plea bargain in which "the State dismissed the remaining two counts of the indictment [which alleged more serious felonies] and agreed to recommend a sentence of community control sanctions if Scheer made full restitution to the victim in the amount of $89,698.81 prior to the sentencing hearing." If Scheer did not make restitution prior to sentencing, the State recommend six months on each count and a court order of restitution. The case thus also raises interesting questions about the impact of prosecutorial discretion and the use of alternatives to incarceration.

The story of Scheer goes on: "Scheer failed to appear at the original sentencing hearing, and was subsequently arrested on a warrant issued by the court. At the time of the sentencing hearing, Scheer had not made restitution." The court then — after making lengthy on-the-record statements referencing the seriousness of the dismissed counts, that the "Defendant has a lengthy and extensive criminal history ... and shows no genuine remorse concerning his actions herein," that the "victim in this case has suffered substantial economic harm," and the "purposes and principles under 2929.11 of the Ohio Revised Code," — concluded that Scheer "is not amenable to available community control sanctions." Based on all these consideration, the trial court thus "sentenced Scheer to twelve months incarceration on each count, the maximum sentence for a fifth degree felony, and ordered that the sentences run consecutively. The court also ordered Scheer to make full restitution to the victim."

The defendant in Scheer objected to some of the sentencing court's findings regarding his criminal history and lack of remorse, and thus the case raises a range of consequential Blakely procedural issues. And, of course, the judge's sentencing decision implicates broader substantive questions about consideration of "dismissed" conduct, criminal history, victim harms, lack of remorse, and "purposes and principles."

In an extremely thoughtful and yet still opaque ruling, the appeals court in Scheer rejects the defendant's Blakely claim, though without addressing every possible Blakely issue. The court also rejects the substance of the defendant's other legal and factual challenges to the sentencing court's decision. However the appeals court still reverses and remands Scheer's sentence with a ruling that raises questions about the importance of written sentencing findings and appellate review. According to the appeals court, the sentencing court's findings were not sufficiently linked to its final sentencing determination:

Although the court made the requisite findings, it did not state the rationale or reasons that support those findings for either the maximum or consecutive sentences. The court made certain factual findings when it determined that community control sanctions were inappropriate and imposed a prison sentence; however, the court never indicated that it was relying on some or all of these findings in imposing maximum or consecutive sentences.... While we recognize that it might seem we are elevating form over substance as the court's reasons for imposing the sentences might be gleaned from the transcript as a whole, the Supreme Court of Ohio has indicated that it will require strict compliance with the provisions of the sentencing statutes. Since the trial court did not specify which of its findings it relied upon in imposing maximum and consecutive sentences, we must reverse and remand this matter to the trial court for further action consistent with this opinion.

September 11, 2004 at 03:42 PM

Media analysis of Blakely

Though we are still in the calm before the media storm I expect to see around the Booker and Fanfan arguments next month, there is still much important and insightful media coverage of the Blakely story in various quarters.

For excellent coverage of state sentencing developments, this article discusses Blakely's impact in North Carolina (covering cases noted here), and this article reviews Blakely's impact in Washington state and documents that in "three separate cases, three different Superior Court judges gave contrary rulings on" Blakely. In addition, this article notes Blakely's potential impact in a significant juvenile "bind-over" ruling in which a state judge determined that a 12-year-old accused murderer could be tried in adult court.

Relatedly, I now have had a chance to read the full text of Benjamin Wittes' article on Blakely to appear in the October 2004 issue of The Atlantic Monthly (available here to subscribers). I think the piece is both sensational and a bit sensationalized.

The Atlantic piece is sensational for appreciating the scope and importance of the ruling. In the piece, Wittes draws comparisons to Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education, and I don't think it is inappropriate to put Blakely in such company. I suggested two months ago in my Slate article that Blakely could prove to be the biggest Supreme Court criminal justice decision ever. Of course, only time and subsequent developments will tell Blakely's place in legal history; but what I have seen in the last few months only reinforces my view that Blakely is as big as it gets.

Yet, the Atlantic piece is also a bit sensationalized for some of its hyperbolic descriptions of the consequences of the Blakely ruling. For example, the piece suggests that Blakely will "guarantee leniency for criminals in as many as 270,000 federal cases" and also asserts that "it's almost inevitable that the decision will either make sentencing guidelines unacceptably rigid or loosen them to the point of meaninglessness."

Though I am sure many defendants and defense attorneys would love to believe that Blakely is a guarantee of leniency for so many, readers of this blog know that some federal defendants have actually received longer sentences after Blakely, and not a single defendant has yet convinced a federal court to apply Blakely retroactively. Moreover, I do not think it is inevitable (or even likely) that Blakely rings a death knell for effective sentencing reform.

In fact, as Justice Kennedy in this dramatic speech and the ABA in this recent report have emphatically documented, there is no reason to believe we had truly effective sentencing reform in the federal system before Blakely. Thus, I think the Blakely decision merits at least some praise for invigorating a (long overdue) national conversation about sentencing policies, practice and procedures.

September 11, 2004 at 10:59 AM

Friday, September 10, 2004

Be careful what you wish for

Because of the mobius strip features of the post-Blakely world, many have repeated in various contexts the old cliche warning "Be careful what you wish for." I have previous suggested that the warning seems appropriate in response to arguments that Blakely is just an application of (and not an extension of) Apprendi. As discussed here and here, that argument might keep federal courts from having lots of sentencing headaches in federal direct appeal cases, but then may produce different and greater headaches for these courts when dealing with state habeas cases.

In another arena, the decision yesterday in US v. Mutchler, 2004 WL 2004080 (S.D. Iowa, Sept. 09, 2004), provides another object lesson in "Be careful what you wish for." At the same time that DOJ has been arguing that Blakely is inapplicable to the federal guidelines, it has also been "Blakely-izing" indictments. (See Ron's post here about amended Blakely-ized indictments in the Enron prosecutions, and note here that the Comey memo urged this double-barrel post-Blakely strategy.)

But, in Mutchler, US District Judge Robert Pratt faced a defense motion to strike allegations of aggravating factors in a Blakely-ized superseding indictment. And Judge Pratt was so moved:

The Court considers the Defendants' arguments persuasive and finds that the aggravating factors within the Superseding Indictment are prejudicial surplusage....

The Government argues the addition of the aggravating factors is proper in the current uncertain post-Blakely v. Washington sentencing environment.... The Government's concerns are understandable.... [But] Defendants argue, since the aggravating factors are not properly offenses against the laws of the United States ..., this Court lacks the subject matter jurisdiction over the matters asserted in the aggravating factors.

The Court agrees that the aggravating factors are not criminal conduct defined by Congress and, as such, have no place within the charging documents against the Defendants.... As a part of guidelines meant to act as procedural rules for the court, the aggravating factors do not provide sufficient authority to bring the allegations contained within them properly before a trier of fact in a United States courtroom.

The Government's concerns about the Defendants' possible windfall in the form of a reduced sentence are genuinely placed. However, the scenario in which the Guidelines are found unconstitutional as applied to the present case is still, technically, suppositional. What is not suppositional is that the presence of the aggravating factors within the charging documents as they now exist is unconstitutional.

There is a lot more rich analysis in Judge Pratt's opinion, and the decision reinforces for me that the warning "Be careful what you wish for" might suitably be given to both prosecutors and defense counsel these days.

September 10, 2004 at 01:32 PM

Different view of deep structural arguments

As discussed here, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson's concurrence in the Fourth Circuit's Hammoud ruling provides a fascinating "separation of powers" argument for why Blakely does not apply to the federal guidelines.

Professor and FSR editor Aaron Rappaport has just completed a draft of an article — entitled "What the Supreme Court Should Do: Save Sentencing Reform, Gut the Guideliens" — which provides another and quite different perspective on these deep structural issues and their impact on the applicability of Blakely in the federal system. This article (which can be downloaded below) will be forthcoming in the next issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter (FSR's second rapid-fire issue covering Blakely). Here's a taste:

I argue ... that a principled rationale for the Supreme Court's Apprendi and Blakely decisions can be identified, a rationale that provides a basis for distinguishing the two kinds of sentencing regimes, at least in some circumstances. At the same time, this analysis does not imply that the federal sentencing system necessarily withstands constitutional scrutiny. Rather, the more nuanced understanding of Blakely and Apprendi generates a specific test for evaluating whether administrative schemes survive review. It is a test the federal sentencing guidelines may not pass, at least absent significant restructuring.

This analysis provides a preliminary attempt to ground the Apprendi and Blakely decisions on deeper constitutional values. It does not aspire to be comprehensive and, in the press of time, the discussion passes over some important issues quickly. Nonetheless, my hope is that this effort will encourage further debate about the logic of the Court’s decisions.

Download rappaport_should_do.pdf

September 10, 2004 at 11:14 AM

More big Blakely news from Colorado

As noted here, the Colorado Supreme Court earlier this week announced its intention to examine whether Colorado's sentencing scheme can survive Blakely. As that court gears up for this issue, a Colorado intermediate appellate court in People v. Solis-Martinez, 2004 WL 2002525 (Colo. App. Sept. 09, 2004), has now officially identified Blakely problems in the operation of Colorado's sentencing provisions.

The court in Solis-Martinez, after providing a brief account of Colorado's sentencing statutes, explains how the case facts raise a Blakely problem and how waiver claims cannot remedy that problem:

Here, in imposing the sixteen-year sentence [following the defendant's guilty plea to criminally negligent child abuse], the trial court relied on its findings that the child was in extreme pain for a long time, that defendant waited so long to take the child to the doctor, that she punished the child because of her circumstances, and that she had continually lied about the events leading to the child's injuries. The court further recorded its findings supporting the aggravated range sentence in a written supplement to its sentencing order that reflected in more detail the information that appeared in the presentence investigation report. However, under Apprendi and Blakely, a sentence beyond the relevant statutory maximum may be imposed only if a jury has determined the aggravating factors or the defendant has admitted them.

In so concluding, we disagree with the People's contention that defendant waived the right to a jury determination of the aggravating factors by pleading guilty to the charged offense. No aggravating factors were charged in the information, and defendant did not stipulate to any. She was not advised that she had a right to have a jury determine any aggravating factors. Therefore, her guilty plea cannot be interpreted as a waiver of her right to have a jury determine factors exposing her to greater punishment than otherwise authorized by the sentencing statute.

September 10, 2004 at 01:16 AM

Non-Blakely news from the First Circuit

The First Circuit still has not yet officially weighed in on Blakely's applicability to the federal guidelines. But, somewhat disconcertingly, the First Circuit in unpublished rulings (noted here and here) seemed to be trying hard to limit the opportunity for certain defendants to raise Blakely claims.

Yet news from the First Circuit in a non-Blakely case has restored my faith in that court's balanced concern for the rights of federal defendants. The court in Goldings v. Winn, No. 03-2633 (1st Cir. Sept. 3, 2004), strongly rejected the government's statutory arguments for a new policy limiting federal inmates' eligibility for placement in a community corrections center. Though legally intricate, Goldings is, according to folks involved directly in federal sentencing proceedings, a very potent and important ruling as the first appellate decision concerning, in the words of the court, a "change in policy [that] has generated a flood of lawsuits in the federal district courts." TalkLeft has some additional helpful explanation of the case here.

September 10, 2004 at 12:48 AM

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Gaining perspective

I am back in the Buckeye state and so very grateful to Congresswoman Maxine Waters and her wonderful staff for allowing me the opportunity to participate in today's panel discussion on federal sentencing at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 34th Annual Legislative Conference in Washington DC (background here).

As I anticipated, I learned a tremendous amount from my fellow panelists and also from the audience on a range of critical issues. Much of the discussion focused on federal mandatory minimum sentencing — and included the exciting news that Congresswoman Waters will soon introduce a bill proposing to eliminate certain mandatory penalties in some non-violent drug cases. But the discussion also canvassed other federal and state sentencing issues. For example, I was disconcerted to hear about New Jersey's severe racial disparities in its prison population from New Jersey's Attorney General Peter C. Harvey, but I was encouraged to hear that New Jersey has a new commission now reviewing the state's sentencing policies and practices. (Background on New Jersey state sentencing realities can be found here, and details about the new New Jersey commission and its challenges are here and here.)

Though I could go on at length about the particular insights shared by other panelists — so many important points were made by The Honorable Ruben Castillo, The Honorable Terry Hatter, Julie Stewart, and Nkechi Taifa — the collective insight I took away from the event concerned how different the sentencing world and the possibility for meaningful reform looks depending upon one's experiences and perspective.

Sadly, I got the feeling that perhpas naive optimism fuels my own belief that Blakely has created an historic moment for historic rethinking of modern sentencing policies and practices. Both the substance and tone of many comments from those working in DC left me with an impression that meaningful sentencing reform seems much more possible when considered from the ivory tower than from inside the Beltway.

September 9, 2004 at 11:56 PM

More on Hammoud and other Blakely news

With the help of a business center at the DC Convention Center, I am pleased to be able to get a "blogging fix" before heading to this exciting event. (As if it was not already obvious, I am clearly addicted to this medium, though I blame Blakely (or perhaps just Justice Scalia) for turning me into such a junkie.)

I had a chance to re-read the Fourth Circuit's decision in Hammoud in transit today, and another review of all the brilliant features of the all the judges' fascinating opinions has my mind racing with so many additional thoughts --- e.g., (1) all of the Blakely bickering perhaps is (or at least should be) really a debate over the requirements of the Due Process Clause at sentencing; (2) it seems defendant Hammoud received an extra 150 years' imprisonment based on the testimony of a single questionable witness who was, according to Judge Gregory, "described throughout the trial as untrustworthy, manipulative, a liar and an exaggerator"; (3) it is really fun to watch smart and sassy judges trade smart and sassy rhetoric in footnotes (compare Wilkinson concurring at fn. * with Motz dissenting at fn. 4). Perhaps I will get a chance (much) later tonight upon my return home to add more words on these and related topics.

In the meantime, Howard Bashman of How Appealing here has some of the daily Blakely news stories, and Jason Hernandez of the Blakely Blog here returns to his helpful daily round-up of Blakely developments. In addition, Jason has here a trenchant analysis of the SCOTUS amici brief filed by three Senators in Booker and Fanfan, which I discussed at length here.

September 9, 2004 at 12:46 PM

Must stop, big day ahead...

Despite having already done three lengthy posts on the Fourth Circuit's Hammoud decision (available here and here and here) there is still a lot more to say — I have not yet even mentioned the "alternative sentencing" part of the majority's decision (which triggered a partial dissent by Judge Widener) or the thoughtful dissents.

But I must call it quits for the night because I have a big day tomorrow. As noted in the flyer here, I was lucky enough to be invited by Congresswoman Maxine Waters to participate on a panel at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 34th Annual Legislative Conference in Washington DC.

The planned Judiciary Issue Forum is intended to cover an array of sentencing reform issues from mandatory minimums to Blakely. I expect to learn a lot from my fellow panelists, who include The Honorable Ruben Castillo (US Sentencing Commission), The Honorable Terry Hatter (US District Judge of the Central District of California), The Honorable Peter C. Harvey (New Jersey's Attorney General), Julie Stewart (President and Founder, Families Against Mandatory Minimums), and Nkechi Taifa, Esq. (Senior Policy Analyst, Open Society Institute). But if I am going to be able to contribute intelligently at all, I better get some sleep.

I doubt I will get to blog much, if at all, from the road tomorrow, but I should be back with more on Hammoud and other developments before long.

September 9, 2004 at 03:54 AM

The power of separation of powers?

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson's concurrence in the Fourth Circuit's Hammoud ruling provides a fascinating "separation of powers" arguments for why Blakely does not apply to the federal guidelines. Though I will need to re-read Judge Wilkinson's rich opinion to appreciate all it is saying, I think I have the basic logic: (1) the judiciary made the federal guidelines, (2) reading Blakely to require proof of guideline factors to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt converts these factors into de facto elements of new crimes, (3) but only the legislature can properly create and define crimes.

This is interesting logic, though it raises almost as many questions as the majority opinion in Hammoud (discussed here). First, though the US Sentencing Commission is nominally in the judicial branch, I have highlighted before that the USSC both in design and in operation is far more like, in Justice Scalia's words, a "junior-varsity Congress" than just a group of judges making sentencing standards for themselves. Second, given that the courts have consistently and widely held that the Ex Post Facto Clause applies to changes in the guidelines (see SG Brief at 25), haven't the courts already concluded that the guidelines do create de facto elements of new crimes?

Finally, I think there is a "through the looking glass" quality to this separation of powers argument, especially given the Framers' apparent interests in democratic checks and balances and in safeguarding individual rights through the Bill of Rights. The implication of Judge Wilkinson's argument, as I understand it, is that if and when Congress creates binding sentencing laws though traditional legislative means (securing approval by both houses and signature by the President), then defendants have the benefits of full constitutional procedural rights during the enforcement of those laws. But if and when a legislature finds a way to writing binding sentencing laws through a non-legislative means (e.g., creating an agency whose rules will be legally binding despite never being traditionally enacted), then defendants have fewer procedural rights in the enforcement of those laws. Whatever one thinks of structural constitutional arguments, I doubt the Framers (or Justice Scalia) ultimately imagined that defendants would get less procedural rights in the application of those laws that are created in less democratically accountable ways.

September 9, 2004 at 03:33 AM

"Statutory" analysis in Hammoud

Judge Wilkins majority's opinion for the Fourth Circuit in Hammoud (available here) puts great emphasis on the use of the phrase "statutory maximum" in Blakely and Apprendi, and he thus finds Blakely inapplicable to the federal guidelines because they are not statutes. In Wilkins words, "Blakely applies to the guidelines only if the Blakely Court redefined the term 'statutory maximum' to include any fact that increases a defendant's potential sentence." But, says Wilkins, "[o]n close examiniation of Blakely, we conclude that the Supreme Court simply applied — and did not modify — the rule articulated in Apprendi."

Though I suppose this is a plausible reading of the Blakely decision, on close examination it raises a lot of questions. First, of course, if the Fourth Circuit is reading Blakely properly, one must wonder why Justices O'Connor and Breyer made so much of a fuss in their Blakely dissents. Obviously, given the energy they spend lamenting the apparent demise of the federal guidelines, Justices O'Connor and Breyer obviously thought Blakely was modifying the rule in Apprendi.

Second, a close reading of Justice Scalia's opinion in Blakely reveals that after the key passage (at slip op. 7) where Justice Scalia (re)defines "statutory maximum," he does not once use that apparently critical phrase again in the final 10 pages of his opinion for the Court. Instead, Justice Scalia speaks of "what state law authorized" (slip op. 8), and not "what a state statute authorized"; he speaks of the "jury's traditional function of finding the facts essential to lawful imposition of the penalty" (slip op. 13), not of the jury's role "finding the facts essential to statutory imposition of the penalty;" he speaks of a defendant's "legal right to a lesser sentence" (slip op. 13), not of a "statutory right to a lesser sentence;" he speaks of "all facts legally essential to the punishment" (slip op. 17), not of "all facts statutorily essential to the punishment." In other words, if Justice Scalia and the others in the Blakely majority were trying not to modify the meaning of Apprendi, the Court's opinion should have been crafted much more carefully.

Finally, as suggested here and here, the Fourth Circuit's conclusion that Blakely "simply applied" Apprendi may have some significant retroactivity consequences. The opinion in many ways intimates that the holding in Blakely was dictated by Apprendi (see p. 66: "in Blakely the Court simply applied the rule of Apprendi to a new set of facts "). But as these recent North Carolina rulings document, at least one Fourth Circuit state has a statutory sentencing guideline system just like the one declared unconstitutional in Blakely. After Hammoud, do all North Carolina prisoners who received enhancements and had not-yet final convictions in June 2000 (when Apprendi was decided) now have strong claims for Blakely relief in the federal courts (even if the state courts won't grant such relief)?

September 9, 2004 at 02:36 AM

So much to say, so much to say...

In addition to ensuring fans of the Dave Matthews Band will now visit this blog, the title of this post accurately describes both the Fourth Circuit's opinions in Hammoud — all 145 pages — and my own feelings about commenting on the Fourth Circuit's work in Hammoud. Let me here do some preliminary commentary, and allow later posts to zero in on various specifics.

First, let me apologize for giving the Fourth Circuit so much grief about taking so long to issue this opinion. I was not aware that there were so many serious and challenging non-Blakely issues that the court had to confront in Hammoud. (The Blakely discussion does not even start until page 48!) I am still a bit troubled by the court's decisions to rush out an opaque Blakely order and take over a month to provide more guidance, but the complicated legal circumstances in Hammoud make this procedure a bit more understandable.

Second, let me note that the author of the main opinion in Hammoud, Chief Judge William W. Wilkins was the original chair of the original US Sentencing Commission that drafted the original guidelines. Also, as we saw in the Koch en banc ruling from the Sixth Circuit, the Hammoud decision is the near judicial equivalent of a "party-line vote." If my calculations are correct, all three judges joining the Hammoud dissent were appointed by a Democratic President (assuming Judge Gregory is counted as a Clinton appointee), while seven of nine judges finding Blakely inapplicable to the federal guidelines were appointed by Republican Presidents.

Third, let me highlight that, no matter what one thinks about Blakely and its applicability to the federal guidelines, the basic facts of Hammoud's sentencing have to give one pause. As Judge Motz rightly stresses at the start of her dissent, Hammoud's sentence without reliance on facts found by the judge by a preponderance would have been 57 months. But judicial fact-finding required under the federal guidelines led the district judge to increase Hammoud's sentence of less than 5 years to a sentence of 155 years!

September 9, 2004 at 02:10 AM

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

The 4th Circuit Speaks!!

Perhaps proving the old saying "be careful what you wish for," my long-standing wish to see what the Fourth Circuit has to say to explain its order in Hammoud has been granted with this 145 pages opinion! No wonder it took a while to write (it will likely take a while just to download it). Here is the complicated line up:

Chief Judge Wilkins wrote the opinion, in which Judges Wilkinson, Niemeyer, Williams, Traxler, King, Shedd, and Duncan joined and in which Judge Widener joined as to all except Part VII.C.

Judge Wilkinson wrote a concurring opinion. Judge Shedd wrote a concurring opinion. Judge Widener wrote a concurring and dissenting opinion. Judge Motz wrote a dissenting opinion, in which Judges Michael and Gregory joined. Judge Gregory wrote a dissenting opinion.

Analysis to follow late tonight.

Download Hammoud.pdf

September 8, 2004 at 05:50 PM

Major Blakely ruling in Oregon

I previously noted here a newspaper article in which a state defense lawyer called Blakely's implications for Oregon state sentencing "absolutely enormous." Showing yet again how insightful defense lawyers can be, today in State v. Sawatzky, No. 0003-32189 (Or. Ct. App. Sept. 8, 2004), an Oregon Court of Appeals concluded that under its state sentencing laws "upward departure sentences violate the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution under the rationale set forth in Blakely."

Sawatzky is a great read in part because it provides a fine summary of Oregon's sentencing guidelines scheme and in part because it articulates the holding in Blakely in this interesting way:

Blakely makes it clear ... that Sixth Amendment analysis under Apprendi is not dependent on legislative intent. That is, the Court did not view as relevant that the Washington legislature, in enacting the sentencing guidelines, intended that courts rather than juries would act as finders of facts that justify "exceptional sentences," even though the Washington guidelines, like the Oregon guidelines, leave no doubt that that was the legislative intent. The Court, in fact, rejected the notion that legislative labeling of "elements" to be found by a jury and "sentencing factors" to be found by a judge could provide the necessary distinction required by the Sixth Amendment....

The Court has made clear in Blakely that a "statutory maximum" sentence for purposes of the Sixth Amendment is not something that, by mere legislative directive, can encompass a sentence enhancement that is based solely on judicial factfinding.

September 8, 2004 at 04:34 PM

Pragmatism and Blakely's retroactivity

An important sub-plot of the Booker and Fanfan cases is whether and how the Supreme Court's clarification of the meaning and reach of Blakely could impact claims about Blakely's retroactivity. As suggested here, I think the nature and structure of the government's argument to exempt the federal guidelines from the Blakely rule could support claims that Blakely was not a "new rule" and thus must apply to all state convictions not yet final when Apprendi was decided in June 2000.

Of course, Blakely's retroactivity is not formally in front of the High Court in Booker and Fanfan, and none of the briefs are likely to address directly the complicated legal issues surrounding retroactivity. Nevertheless, as suggested by my posts on retroactivity here and here, pragmatically speaking the impact of Blakely on past state sentences is probably more consequential than Blakely's impact on current federal sentences (especially because, as federal district judges know well, constitutional challenges to state criminal judgments always find their way to federal courts through habeas actions).

Contributing to these pragmatic realities is the recent observation made by Senior US District Judge Milton Shadur in US v. Rodriguez, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17661 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 1, 2004), that " it is obvious that the prison grapevine has been operating overtime to suggest to long-ago-sentenced prisoners [that they] can somehow draw comfort from the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely." The Rodriguez case highlights that what the Supreme Court says in Booker and Fanfan, whether or not it impacts the legal realities of retroactivity claims, will indisputably impact some perceptions of retroactivity claims.

I raise all the points simply because, whatever one thinks of the principles and doctrines of retroactivity, it is fascinating to contemplate whether and how these pragmatic considerations should influence the thinking of the Justices in Booker and Fanfan. These issues also reinforce my view discussed here that institutions other than courts ought to be getting to work on these important retroactivity questions.

September 8, 2004 at 12:12 PM

Blakely back in the headlines

After an interesting hiatus in media coverage, the reporters are back on the Blakely story. And today we get interesting views on divergent efforts to handle federal sentencings until greater guidance on the guidelines' constitutionality comes from the Supreme Court.

Specifically, this article from Indiana provides more background on ND Indiana Chief Judge Robert Miller's decision to deny the local US Attorney's motion seeking to delay all sentencings. And this editorial from the Munster Times praises Judge Miller's decision saying "justice should not be delayed."

But then this article reports on Mississippi US District Judge David Bramlette's decision to continue all of his federal sentencing cases "until the Supreme Court has given some guidance on Blakely." And this article, while suggesting that New Jersey US District Judge Anne E. Thompson may delay the sentencing of a former financial advisor Alexis Arlett, canvasses different perspectives on this period of Blakely uncertainty and notes that "for Arlett's victims, any more delay is likely to be met with skepticism."

Meanwhile, this article discusses more broadly the post-Blakely challenges for federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania, and this article details how state prosecutors in Washington are struggling with the Blakely aftermath. And this article notes how Blakely might have an impact on the upcoming federal sentencing of Frank Quattrone, the investment banker convicted of obstructing a government probe.

In addition, new commentary on Blakely, Booker and Fanfan can be found on Findlaw, which has thoughtful pieces by Professor Vikram Amar and commentator Ed Lazarus. And though Benjamin Wittes' article on Blakely for the October 2004 issue of The Atlantic Monthly requires a subscription to retrieve on-line, here you can see a snippet of the article and a contributor's quote that Blakely is "the single most irresponsible decision in the modern history of the Supreme Court."

September 8, 2004 at 08:26 AM

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Re-start your sentencings in Indiana

Though this news is now a bit dated, with all the recent SCOTUS briefing activity I just noticed this weekend that Chief Judge Robert Miller of the US District Court of Northern Indiana denied the request by local US Attorney Joseph Van Bokkelen for a district-wide stay of all sentencings until the US Supreme Court decides Booker and Fanfan.

The details of the interesting stay motion filed last month can be found here, and Marcia Oddi at the The Indiana Law Blog has the highlights of the motion's denial here. In addition, this newspaper article discusses the denial of the motion, while this article reports on a Blakely-impacted sentencing in the Northern District of Indiana right after the motion was denied.

September 7, 2004 at 11:57 PM

Mile High Blakely

Though I have note yet seen a lower court opinion from Colorado grappling with Blakely's meaning for that state, this Denver Post article long ago blared in its headline that the Blakely "Ruling Could Nullify Sentences in Colorado." And now a thoughtful reader reports that the Colorado Supreme Court today announced its intention to examine whether Colorado's sentencing scheme can survive Blakely in the case of Lopez v. Colorado, No. 04SC150. According to the e-mail I received:

This case on which it granted certiorari deals with the mandatory aggravating factors of the defendant's being on parole, in prison, or an escapee from prison at the time of the crime. (In Colorado, the law sets a "presumptive sentencing range." The trial court may sentence the defendant to twice the maximum of this range if the court finds mandatory aggravating facts listed in the statute, or the court, in its discretion, finds other "extraordinary aggravating circumstances" that are not listed in the statute.)

While I ponder whether it is funny to describe the Colorado Supreme Court as the (Mile) High Court, you can read below the text of the court's order:

Whether Blakely v. Washington, 541 U.S. __, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (June 24, 2004), and Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000) prohibit the aggravation of petitioner's sentence because the statutory enhancement factors, defined in section 18-1-105(9)(a)(II) and section 18-1-105(9)(a)(V), were never charged in an information nor pled to by petitioner.

September 7, 2004 at 07:34 PM

Judging through the Blakely/blogsphere lens

A fascinating (side) story in the whole Blakely saga has been the amazing lens it creates for questions of judicial roles and responsibilities. I have not had much time to blog about these matters, though I have discussed briefly here the interesting and questionable use of "unpublished" opinion to address consequential Blakely issues.

Helpfully, some fellow bloggers are zeroing in on some of these interesting judging subjects. For example, Chris Geidner at Law Dork has this great post which, in a sense, defends the Sixth Circuit's Koch opinion on "judging" grounds. The whole post deserves attention, but I especially liked this pithy summary of Koch: "The Sixth Circuit ruling means: Let the Supreme Court be the tailor."

Similarly, Ken Lammers over at CrimLaw has this interesting post linking what he calls anti-Blakely positions to anti-Exclusionary Rule arguments. With rhetorical force, Ken contends: "The purpose of both [arguments] is to give theoretical cover to acts which in practice violate the constitution. It's asking the court to accept Plessy style reasoning in a Brown world."

September 7, 2004 at 06:01 PM

The Blakely earthquake hits North Carolina

In what I believe are the first two cases from the North Carolina state courts dealing with Blakely, today in State v. Speight, 2004 WL 1960082, (N.C. App. Sept. 07, 2004) and State v. Allen, 2004 WL 1960333 (N.C. App. Sept. 07, 2004), two different appellate panels found, without much hesitation, that Blakely rendered unconstitutional aspects of North Carolina's state sentencing system.

In Speight, the court minced no words in identifying the Blakely problem and in rejecting the government's argument that a Blakely error should be deemed harmless:

Defendant received two consecutive aggravated sentences of a minimum of twenty and a maximum of twenty-four months for involuntary manslaughter and a consecutive aggravated sentence of twelve months for impaired driving. As the jury did not decide the aggravating factors considered by the trial court, defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury was violated. See Blakely.

Nonetheless, the State argues that under a harmless error analysis, defendant's sentences should be upheld. However, as explained in State v. Allen, "[o]ur Supreme Court has definitively stated that when 'the [trial] judge [has] erred in a finding or findings in aggravation and imposed a sentence beyond the presumptive term, the case must be remanded for a new sentencing hearing.'" Accordingly, we grant defendant's motion for appropriate relief and remand this case to the trial court for resentencing consistent with the holding in Blakely.

In Allen, the court more fully discusses how the provision for imposing "aggravated sentences" in North Carolina "appears substantially similar to the portion of Washington's criminal sentencing statute analyzed in Blakely." Interestingly, according to the Allen court, state lawyers in North Carolina have been conceding after Blakely that aggravated range sentencings constitute a violation of a defendant's constitutional rights. (This apparently proper concession of Blakely's reach by North Carolina lawyers of course stands in sharp contrast to what we are seeing from federal lawyers in the federal courts, as discussed here and here).

Filling out its rejection of the state's harmless error claims, the Allen court explains:

Our Supreme Court has definitively stated that when "the [trial] judge [has] erred in a finding or findings in aggravation and imposed a sentence beyond the presumptive term, the case must be remanded for a new sentencing hearing." State v. Ahearn, 307 N.C. 584, 602 (1983). In the case sub judice, it is undisputed that the trial judge unilaterally found the existence of an aggravating factor and, thereupon, sentenced defendant in the aggravated range. The State's argument, when viewed in light of the ruling articulated in Ahearn, must fail, as this Court should properly remand the case for resentencing. Accordingly, we grant defendant's motion for appropriate relief and remand this case to the trial court for resentencing consistent with the holding in Blakely.

September 7, 2004 at 03:22 PM

Pitch for a law-themed disaster movie?

As noted here by Professor Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy and here by applicant Chris Geidner at Law Dork, today is the official start of the federal clerkship application mania. The massive numbers of applications in transit today has me thinking of a hollywood pitch for a law-themed disaster movie:

"What happens to federal judges and their earnest staff when a tidal wave of clerkship applications floods a chambers already reeling from a number 10 Blakely earthquake?"

To a law geek like me, this pitch sounds as exciting as any of these recently inked Hollywood deals. But I need a catchy title. Suggestions? (If you scroll down the Hollywood deals list linked above, you will see that "The Passion of the Clerks" has already been taken by director Kevin Smith.)

September 7, 2004 at 01:44 PM

While you were barbequing...

I did get some R&R over the weekend, but I could not help spending parts of the Labor Day laboring over the briefs filed in Booker and Fanfan. Some of my (not-too-brief) brief commentary includes reviews of the Bizarro judges' brief, the mis-filed Senators' brief, and the page-turning briefs from the SG and USSC. In addition, this post on federalism and retroactivity probes some deeper issues lurking in Booker and Fanfan.

Finally, I wonder if the Fourth Circuit took advantage of the long weekend to finally finish an opinion in Hammoud. It is now over 5 full weeks since the court issued its (opaque) order declaring Blakely inapplicable to the federal guidelines, but recommending that district courts announce alternative sentences. As detailed here, the compelling facts in Hammoud are perhaps slowing down the Fourth Circuit (recall that Hammoud had more than 150 years added to a sentence of less than 5 years based on judge-found facts).

September 7, 2004 at 09:13 AM

Monday, September 06, 2004

Pulp Fiction

In addition to being a great movie worthy of great web analysis, pulp fiction is a term for a type of literature where selections of fictional short stories are printed in a bulk magazine for distribution. Thus, it makes a great label for the stories to be found in some of the Booker and Fanfan briefs filed in the Supreme Court last week. Though the deftly written briefs submitted by the SG and USSC do not make misrepresentations, the briefs certainly suggest (at least) five pulp fictions that merit focused examination:

Pulp Fiction 1: The US Sentencing Commission is a truly independent agency in which judges make sentencing rules for themselves. As discussed here and here, the USSC both in design and in operation is far more like, in Justice Scalia's memorable phrase, a "junior-varsity Congress" than like a Judicial Branch coach. If the federal sentencing guidelines were written by the Judicial Conference or developed through a true common-law process, the claim for distinct constitutional status might be more plausible. But the SG concedes at pp. 24-25, as it must, that Congressional control over the USSC is considerable. And, Judge Kathleen Cardone recently called "the proposition that the existing Guidelines, which bind a sentencing court to procedures on peril of reversal, are no more than a court rule guiding a judge through sentencing" is "a legal fiction of the highest order" (details here).

Pulp Fiction 2: The federal guidelines merely "channel" or "guide" judicial discretion. The SG and USSC briefs assert repeatedly that the federal guidelines merely guide or "channel judicial discretion." See, e.g., SG Brief at 22; USSC Brief at 15. But of course, as many judges and observers have highlighted, the federal guidelines are guidelines in name only. They are binding legal authority which, in the calculation of sentencing ranges, directly mandate what facts must be considered by judges and also how those facts must be considered. No matter how thoughtful or reasoned, a judge who seeks to exercise her discretion in any manner that does strictly follow the guidelines' "guidance" will be reversed.

Pulp Fiction 3: No parts of the federal guidelines are statutory. Only in a footnote does the SG concede that Congress directly amended the guidelines through the PROTECT Act, and the SG's brief does not explain the potential impact of that reality on the assertion that the Blakely is inapplicable to the federal guidelines because they "are the product of ... a body in the Judicial Branch." And, of course, Congress' direct changes to the guidelines is but one part of the PROTECT Act's alternation of federal sentencing to make the guidelines even more "legislative" and less "judicial."

Pulp Fiction 4: The SRA mandates, and effective guideline reform requires, lax procedures at sentencing. As discussed here and here, the briefs intimate that the success of federal sentencing reform depends upon sentencing judges being able to find many facts by a preponderance of the evidence. But, as many state systems have shown, effective guideline reform does not require complex judicial fact-finding of uncharged "relevant conduct." Moreover, as the USSC brief reveals, the federal guidelines' emphasis on judicial fact-finding of uncharged conduct comes as a result of (highly questionable) choices made by the original US Sentencing Commission, it was not mandated by the provisions of the Sentencing Reform Act. Indeed, the USSC could have devised guidelines from the outset which would have been fully compliant with the rule announced in Blakely — and such a system likely would have been more successful and better received than the current federal guideline system.

Pulp Fiction 5: The issues discussed above matter in the application of Blakely's rule. In the end, the briefs submitted in an effort to sustain the federal sentencing system are all staging Hamlet without the prince. Though pragmatic concerns about applying Blakely to federal sentencing are stressed, lacking in all the briefs is a truly principled argument that defendants should not have a right to a jury find beyond a reasonable doubt sentence-enhancing facts.

September 6, 2004 at 11:30 PM

Blakely, federalism, retroactivity and pragmatism

As I noted before here, it is significant and telling that no states have filed briefs in support of the federal government's position in Booker and Fanfan. And upon re-reading the briefs seeking to distinguish the federal system from the rule in Blakely, I was struck particularly by the federalism ironies in this chapter of sentencing reform and also by how the SG's arguments may sell out the states on the important question of Blakely's retroactivity. Let me explain:

1. The federalism ironies. Thoughtful observers of modern sentencing reform — from the ABA in its Standards for Criminal Justice to leading academics (see, e.g., Michael Tonry, Sentencing Matters (1996), Richard Frase, Sentencing Guidelines in Minnesota, Other States, and the Federal Courts: A Twenty-Year Retrospective, 12 Fed. Sent. Rep. 69 (1999)) — consistently report that state sentencing reform efforts have generally been successful while federal efforts have not. In Professor Tonry's words, "Few outside the federal commission would disagree that the federal guidelines have been a disaster [while] state guidelines [have] turned out ... surprisingly well." Sentencing Matters at pp. 9-13.

Yet now the SG and USSC are arguing that the distinctive features of the federal system — e.g., that the federal guidelines are (mostly) written by a (mostly ineffectual) commission and that they are (extremely) complicated and require punishment for uncharged conduct — should exempt the federal guidelines from the constitutional rule articulated in Blakely. The first irony is that highly questionable legal distinctions are being made in an effort to "save" perhaps the only guideline system that does not deserve saving. The deeper federalism irony is that arguments for a "federal exemption" to the Blakely rule are being made to a Rehnquist Court that has sought to reinvigorate federalism concepts by exempting states from federal legal burdens.

2. The states' retroactivity problem. Inherent to the SG's argument that Blakely does not apply to the federal guidelines is the assertion that Blakely was just an application of the Apprendi rule. See SG Brief at 18 ("Blakely thus applied the rule of Apprendi"); see also USSC Brief at 18-19. In other words, to exempt the federal guidelines from Blakely, the Supreme Court would essentially have to hold that Blakely was not a new rule, just an application of the rule announced in Apprendi. But so holding would then seem to require states to apply the (not-new) Blakely rule to all convictions not yet final when Apprendi was decided in June 2000.

In other words, the argument the SG is making in an effort to "save" the current federal sentencing system (which, by most accounts, is not worth saving) could have the effect of destroying at least four years of past state sentencing outcomes. Following the SG's arguments to its logical conclusion entails that the argument for exempting the federal guidelines from Blakely is not pragmatic at all, since pragmatically speaking such a ruling will create many more headaches and problems for state sentencing systems than it might save for federal sentencing. Thus, despite my earlier suggestion here that the federal debate over Blakely is a dispute between principle and pragmatism, I now realize that both principle and pragmatism support the application of Blakely to the federal system.

September 6, 2004 at 12:30 PM

Great brief, wrong case: the three Senators' brief

In comments, Thomas Yerbich quite succinctly summarizes the amicus brief filed by US Senators Orrin G. Hatch, Edward M. Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein (available here):

The Senators' amicus brief provides an excellent recap of the history of the Sentencing Reform Act and its intended remedial effect. Notably absent from the Senators' amicus brief is any discussion whatsoever of the Sixth Amendment, in fact it is not even mentioned!

Indeed, I was struck while reading the brief that it would be an extremely effective in a case challenging mandatory minimum sentences or the provisions of the Feeney Amendment. The three Senators' brief stresses that the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA) "intended sentencing judges to have flexibility to move a sentence both upward and downward within the applicable guidelines range based on an individualized consideration of the offender and his offense and, in unusual cases, to depart upward or downward outside of the guidelines range." Yet mandatory minimums and the Feeney Amendment do far more to undermine this intended "flexibility" and "individualized consideration" than would a holding in Booker and Fanfan that defendants have a right to have proven beyond a reasonable doubt facts requiring enhanced sentences.

Of course, Justices Kennedy and Breyer both appreciate that mandatory minimums undermine the laudable goals of the SRA. Justice Kennedy in his Koon decision stressed the importance of judicial departure authority within the SRA, and he has long assailed mandatory minimums as "unwise and unjust." (See, most recently, this important speech to the ABA last year.) Similarly, Justice Breyer has long lamented the impact of mandatory minimum statutes on the operation of the guidelines system he helped create:

[S]tatutory mandatory sentences prevent the Commission from carrying out its basic, congressionally mandated task: the development, in part through research, of a rational, coherent set of punishments.... Every system, after all, needs some kind of escape valve for unusual cases.... For this reason, the Guideline system is a stronger, more effective sentencing system in practice.

In sum, Congress, in simultaneously requiring Guideline sentencing and mandatory minimum sentencing, is riding two different horses. And those horses, in terms of coherence, fairness, and effectiveness, are traveling in opposite directions. [In my view, Congress should] abolish mandatory minimums altogether.

Speech of Justice Stephen Breyer, Federal Sentencing Guidelines Revisited (Nov. 18, 1998), reprinted at 11 Fed. Sent. Rep. 180, 184-85 (1999). Indeed, Senator Orrin Hatch himself has long been on record noting the major faults of mandatory sentences and calling for a complete reexamination of the issue. See Orrin G. Hatch, The Role of Congress in Sentencing: The United States Sentencing Commission, Mandatory Minimum Sentences, and the Search for a Certain and Effective Sentencing System, 28 Wake Forest L. Rev. 185 (1993).

In other words, as I have stressed in my own writings, the SRA was a great piece of legislation, but the federal sentencing system in practice has not in fact achieved its laudable goals. That is why I have suggested here that there is a strong case to be made that applying Blakely to the federal guidelines would in fact help give effect to the intent of Congress in enacting the SRA.

The three Senators' brief does not even mention the Sixth Amendment perhaps because it hard to argue that respecting defendants' rights to have facts proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt itself undermines the goals of sentencing reform. Of course, Justice Scalia and four other Justices obviously understand this when they stress that Blakely "is not about whether determinate sentencing is constitutional, only about how it can be implemented in a way that respects the Sixth Amendment." And these realities in part explain why I have speculated here that Justices Kennedy and Breyer may join the "Blakely five" before any Justice in that group shrinks away from carrying the Blakely principle to its logical conclusion.

September 6, 2004 at 09:04 AM

Sunday, September 05, 2004

When did Judge Martin enter the Bizarro World?

This weekend I have had the chance to review the briefs filed in the Supreme Court last week in the Booker and Fanfan cases. Especially when reading arguments that Blakely should not apply to the federal guidelines, I am struck by how out of touch with reality the briefs seem to be. The briefs describe not the current federal guidelines system, but rather an idealized federal sentencing system — a system which could have come to pass after the enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act, but which does not really exist now. See generally A Common Law for This Age of Federal Sentencing: The Opportunity and Need for Judicial Lawmaking, 11 Stanford Law & Policy Review 93 (1999).

In subsequent posts, I hope to highlight the fairy-tale nature of parts of the SG and USSC briefs, but in this space I must first wonder out loud about the amici curiae brief filed by former US District Judge John Martin on behalf of an "ad hoc group of former federal judges." The brief itself, as well as some insightful reader comments about its "Alice-in-Wonderland quality," can be found here.

As I was reading this brief, I could not help but think of the question that is the title of this post: "When did Judge Martin enter the Bizarro World?" As is well-known to true Seinfeld fans, the Bizarro World is a place inhabited by imperfect duplicates of Superman and his friends who do everything backwards. (I have uploaded the cover of this comic classic, and here is a link with helpful background on the basic bizarro concept and here is a link with a lot more about the place of Bizarro in Superman lore.)

For followers of federal sentencing, former US District Judge Martin has been something of a "Man of Steel" for his courageous decision to relinquish his lifetime appointment in part, he said, to protest the unjust nature of the federal sentencing process. In this widely discussed New York Times Op-ed entitled "Let Judges Do Their Jobs" (published exactly a year to the day before Blakely was handed down), Judge Martin explained that he was resigning from the federal bench because "Congress has tried to micromanage the work of the commission and has undermined its efforts to provide judges with some discretion in sentencing or to ameliorate excessively harsh terms." Judge Martin concluded his astute criticisms of federal sentencing by saying that "I never thought that I would leave the federal bench [but] I no longer want to be part of our unjust criminal justice system."

Similarly, this report of Judge Martin's remarks at the ABA Kennedy Commission hearings highlights some of the criticisms of federal sentencing he has been sharing with audiences around the country for the last year:

John Martin ... said that a system that does not have a departure rate of "25 to 30 percent cannot do justice." Absent appropriate judicial discretion to depart from the guidelines, federal sentencing is currently imposing sentences that are too harsh, Martin argued.... Martin criticized the system for forcing judges to impose "incredibly harsh sentences" without giving them the ability to properly differentiate between offenders.

But now — apparently after a trip to the Bizarro World (or should I say the Blakely World) — Judge Martin and others assert that federal judges have "broad judicial discretion" because the federal guidelines "substantially preserve a court's sentencing discretion" in a system "more analogous to the traditional indeterminate scheme" than to the "determinate statutory scheme at issue in Blakely." Martin Brief at pp. 5-6, 9-10. Perhaps in the Bizarro World it is true, as this brief claims, that the federal guidelines "more closely resemble the regime at issue in Williams than in Blakely," id. at 14, but most federal sentencing observers and participants likely would not consider this a fair description of the real world of federal sentencing today.

Also, apparently in the Bizarro World of federal sentencing the Feeney Amendment was just an odd footnote to the guidelines' preservation of "substantial judicial discretion," and the "24% departure rate in the Second Circuit" is more representative of federal sentencing realities than the "6% rate of departure in the Fourth Circuit." See id. at 13-22. But, even these pre-Feeney Amendment statistics show that the majority of federal circuits had a departure rate under 10% in fiscal year 2002. And, of course, the Feeney Amendment further constrained judicial discretion to depart, and it reversed legislatively the Supreme Court's Koon decision emphasized throughout the Martin brief. Moreover, if federal sentencing in the Second Circuit is sound because "judicial discretion over sentencing remains both broad and meaningful in those circuits that have recognized the full extent to the Guidelines' departure power," id. at 22, why did Judge Martin need to resign? He was a judge in the Southern District of New York, which is part of the Second Circuit.

Gosh knows many wish that federal sentencing was in fact like Judge Martin and his colleagues describe in their brief, and I laud the effort to emphasize the importance of substantial judicial discretion in a well-functioning sentencing system. Indeed, in my own writings I have stressed that an improved departure mechanism (and the eliminatation of many mandatory minimum sentences) could remedy much of what ails federal sentencing. See Balanced and Purposeful Departures: Fixing a Jurisprudence that Undermines the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, 76 Notre Dame Law Review 21 (2000).

But, as too many judges and defendants and defense attorneys know too well, federal sentencing now takes place in the Feeney World, not in the Bizarro World. Thus, it is hard to fully understand why Judge Martin is writing so forcefully in defense of a system that he himself felt he had to quit because it was unjust.

September 5, 2004 at 08:09 AM

Saturday, September 04, 2004

Texas-sized Blakely analysis

In a wonderful and thorough analysis of issues that now confront the Supreme Court in Booker and Fanfan, US District Judge Kathleen Cardone of the Western District of Texas does not let the Fifth Circuit's ruling in US v. Peneiro, 377 F.3d 464 (5th Cir. 2004), keep her from opining on the true meaning of Blakely for federal sentencing law. In US v. Chapparro, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17531 (W.D. Tex. Sept. 1, 2004), Judge Cardone recognizes that "Pineiro is undisputedly the law of this Circuit," but then offers a stunningly detailed exegesis and analysis of Blakely issues "in the event the Court of Appeals elects to reconsider its holding in Pineiro."

Though a very long opinion, Chapparro is worth a thorough and full read because it first thoughtfully discusses "the structure and application of the Guidelines [and] relevant Supreme Court precedent leading up to the Blakely decision," and then turns to "a structural comparison between the federal guidelines and the guidelines before the Court in Blakely [in order to] address the significance, if any, of the fact that the federal guidelines are promulgated by an independent agency whereas the guidelines before the Court in Blakely are promulgated by a legislature."

Because Judge Cardone's analysis is so rich, I cannot do it justice with a brief summary. But these key passages I think capture the most important highlights:

Given the past characterization of the Guidelines as binding on judges rather than suggestive, it is difficult to ascertain a principled reason by which an agency delegated lawmaking authority restrained only by a Congressional right of refusal would be permitted to effect the substantive rights of defendants without offending the Constitution while Congressional action of the exact same nature would offend the Constitution. Such an interpretation reduces the right to jury trial to a "mere procedural formality," Blakely, 124 S. Ct. at 2538, in which the essential question becomes not the right itself but rather the source of the procedure. The right to jury trial could be vitiated by simply transferring lawmaking authority to an agency....

[I]t would therefore take a legal fiction of the highest order embracing the proposition that the existing Guidelines, which bind a sentencing court to procedures on peril of reversal, are no more than a court rule guiding a judge through sentencing and therefore constitute a form of agreement with the Commission by which discretion is ceded in exchange for predictability. Only such a fabrication would explain why an offender has rights under statutory guidelines and lacks the same rights under a regulatory guideline.

September 4, 2004 at 09:22 PM

More on Blakely's retroactivity

In Morris v. US, 2004 WL 1944014 (C.D. Ill. Sep 01, 2004), District Judge Jeanne Scott walks through the various steps of Blakely retroactivity analysis as carefully and as thoroughly as any court to date. Unlike the garbled ruling in Garcia v. US, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14984 (NDNY Aug. 4, 2004), Judge Scott's analysis in Morris rightly reflects that Teague's retroactivity analysis only applies to "new" rules, and she comes to the conclusion that Blakely is a "new" rule despite the fact that it is arguably only an application of Apprendi. (See some background on these issue in the post and comments here.)

However, at the last step of her Teague retroactivity analysis, Judge Scott falls prey to a mistake common to many considering retroactivity by suggesting that the Supreme Court's decision in Schriro conclusively forecloses the issue: "Schriro teaches, however, that such a right cannot be applied retroactively because it is not of the type fundamental to the concept of ordered liberty." But, as I have stressed repeatedly before here and here, in Schriro there was no question about the application of the proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard (see footnote 1 of the Court's opinion in Schriro); Schriro only concerned retroactive application of the jury right. Consequently, a number of commentators have astutely noted that Schriro does not conclusively foreclose retroactive application of Blakely.

September 4, 2004 at 01:36 PM

Tennessee's functionality meets Blakely's formalism

In this post I focused on Ohio sentencing law to highlight that Blakely's formal rule is so consequential (and confusing) because functionality, not formalism, is the hallmark of many facets of sentencing reform. Another interesting example of these dynamics emerged from Tennessee this past week in State v. Bellamy, 2004 WL 1936384 (Tenn. Crim. App. Aug. 31, 2004), where the court was addressing the state's functional presumption for "alterntive sentencing" in its sentencing laws.

The majority's opinion in Bellamy actually avoided discussing what Blakely might mean for the state presumption for an alterntive sentence, though it did helpfully explain this part of Tennessee sentencing law:

In regards to alternative sentencing, Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-102(5) provides as follows: "In recognition that state prison capacities and the funds to build and maintain them are limited, convicted felons committing the most severe offenses, possessing criminal histories evincing a clear disregard for the laws and morals of society, and evincing failure of past efforts at rehabilitation shall be given first priority regarding sentencing involving incarceration." A defendant who does not fall within this class of offenders "and who is an especially mitigated offender or standard offender convicted of a Class C, D, or E felony is presumed to be a favorable candidate for alternative sentencing in the absence of evidence to the contrary." Id. § 40-35-102(6).

Though the majority did not speak at all to how Blakely might impact the application of this provision by sentencing judges, Judge James Curtwood Witt concurring did so in this thoughtful way:

In my view, we must recognize the possibility that Blakely v. Washington, hampers a trial judge's authority to make the fact findings necessary to overcome the statutory presumption of favorable candidacy for alternative sentencing....

The defendant in the present case enjoyed the presumption of Code section 40-35-102(6), and it behooved the trial court, in imposing a sentence of confinement, to offset the presumption by finding any, or any combination, of the factual premises listed in section 40-35-103(1), such as, the need to protect society from an offender with a long history of criminal conduct or the ineffectiveness of prior non-confinement measures. See id. § 40-35- 103(1)(A)(C) (2003). That factual determination is in addition to the facts explicitly or implicitly established by the defendant's guilty plea....

[T]he High Court in Blakely did not speak in narrow terms that targeted merely the length of an accused's sentence; rather, it spoke in broad terms of the state's power to punish: "When a judge inflicts punishment that the jury's verdict alone does not allow, the jury has not found all the facts 'which the law makes essential to the punishment,'... and the judge exceeds his proper authority." Id. (quoting 1 J. Bishop, Criminal Procedure, § 87, p. 55 (2d ed. 1872) (emphasis added). Thus, Blakely seems to have impact on Tennessee's scheme of presuming favorable candidacy for alternative sentencing because whether to confine or not confine is, in a general sense, an issue of punishment....

That said, we know that the Sixth Amendment's prohibition of increasing punishment beyond the "statutory maximum" based upon an additional judge-made finding does not apply to "the fact of a prior conviction." In the present case, the defendant's record of prior convictions is substantial. Although the pertinent factual premise for overcoming the presumption of favorable candidacy for alternative sentencing addresses prior "history of criminal conduct," a standard that does not necessarily limit consideration to conduct that resulted in convictions, the defendant does have an extensive record of prior convictions. For that reason, I believe that the trial judge could have properly based his confinement order on the record of prior convictions, and even if Blakely does apply to Code section 40-35-102(6)'s presumption, the court's use of sentencing factors other than prior criminal convictions would be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

September 4, 2004 at 01:14 PM

Another possible Blakely front and great dicta

Though not formally a Blakely case, the South Carolina Supreme Court in a decision last week was apparently influenced by Blakely when considering an intricate issue of appellate procedure. In State v. Brown, 2004 WL 1948696 (S.C. Aug. 30, 2004), the Court was considering whether and when an appellate court, after reversing a conviction due to lack of evidence on one element of the offense, should be able to remand the case for entry of judgment and sentencing on a lesser included offense. The Brown court provides an extended and quite interesting discussion of the appropriateness of so-called "sentencing remands," and it notes along the way that "[n]umerous state and federal courts have approved of the practice of a sentencing remand in appropriate circumstances."

The court in Brown ultimately concludes that when a conviction is reversed due to insufficient evidence, a court should consider remanding a case for sentencing on a lesser included offense only in very limited circumstances, and along the way the court cites Apprendi, Ring, and Blakely in support of its ruling. In so doing, the court drops this choice footnote:

We recognize the vigorous debate, as expressed in Apprendi, Ring, and Blakely, between those justices who believe our people's traditional belief in right of trial by jury is in perilous decline due to the accelerating propensity of both state and federal legislatures to adopt 'sentencing factors' determined by judges that increase the punishment beyond what is authorized by the jury's verdict, Ring, 536 U.S. at 611- 612 (Scalia, J., concurring), and those who believe Apprendi and its progeny portend disastrous practical consequences for state and federal sentencing guideline schemes developed during the past two decades through the collective experience and wisdom of the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government. Blakely, 124 S.Ct. at 2543-2561 (O'Connor, Kennedy, and Breyer, JJ., dissenting separately). The present view of the majority of the Supreme Court regarding the crucial role of the jury in determining facts relating to elements of the crime and facts which may result in increased punishment, other than the fact of a prior conviction, undoubtedly lends support to our resolution of this case.

September 4, 2004 at 12:39 AM

Friday, September 03, 2004

Judge Posner on blogging

This article from the ABA Journal e-report discusses Seventh Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner's view of blogs and blogging after he spent a week as a guest blogger on lessig blog for Stanford Professor (and former Posner clerk) Lawrence Lessig. Just like Judge Posner's many posts, the article is an interesting, informative and amusing read.

Though I encourage reading the whole ABA article, this set of quotes seemed especially choice on a Friday afternoon (and coming from a person who made his name on law-and-economics insights):

"What worries me about the phenomenon is the time being consumed," says Posner. "There’s a lot of interesting material in the blogs and comments, but is it the best use of time?"

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I have sent an e-mail to Judge Posner — the author, recall, of the majority opinion in Booker — offering him the opportunity to guest blog in this space. I have not yet heard back from the Judge (though I noticed here that Judge Posner is already committed to guest blogging on Professor Brian Leiter's blog later this year).

Happy holiday weekend.

September 3, 2004 at 05:47 PM

First Circuit mutters!!

In this crazy post-Blakely world, one amazing discovery I have made — or perhaps I should say one supposition I have had confirmed — is that many important and consequential decisions are announced in unpublished opinions. Yet another example comes again from the First Circuit, which yesterday in US v. Morgan, No. 03-1768 (1st Cir. Sept. 2, 2004), addressed key issues of waiver and plain error review of Blakely claims.

First, in contrast to a recent California decision in People v. Ochoa (noted here), the First Circuit in Morgan first suggests (though does not quite hold) that the defendant waived his Blakely claims, even though Blakely was decided after his case was appealed and argued and even though he disputed at sentencing the amount of drugs involved in his offense. Then the court ducks deciding this issue by saying that even if the defendant merely "forfeited" and did not waive his Blakely claim by not raising it sooner (i.e., before Blakely was decided), the defendant still would not prevail in his appeal under plain error analysis:

Plain error review is extremely deferential.... Under existing (post-Apprendi, pre-Blakely) First Circuit precedent, the judge is empowered in a conspiracy case to determine the exact amount of drugs that a defendant reasonably foresaw, so long as his sentence is no greater than that which could be imposed based on the total quantity of drugs that the jury had found for the conspiracy as a whole. See Derman, 298 F.3d 34, 42-43. Because the trial judge acted in accordance with circuit precedent, we cannot say plain error occurred, and we need not proceed further.

As an unpublished decision, I do not think Morgan is binding precedent that Blakely does not apply in the First Circuit. But the decision certainly is in tension with all the First Circuit district court decisions (such as Fanfan and Meuffleman) finding that Blakely renders at least portions the federal guidelines unconstitutional.

In addition, the facts of the Morgan case provide a stunning example of the potential importance of Blakely and especially the requirement that sentence-enhancing facts are found beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant in Morgan throughout the case contested the amount of drugs that the government was trying to attribute to him, and the First Circuit affirmed the sentence by relying heavily on the fact that, under pre-Blakely law, such drug amounts only have to be found by a preponderance. Here is the first paragraph for the Morgan court's substantive analysis:

As oft-written, "[w]e review the sentencing court's factual findings, which must be supported by a preponderance of the evidence, for clear error." United States v. Lopez, 299 F.3d 84, 87 (1st Cir. 2002), citing United States v. Damon, 127 F.3d 139, 141 (1st Cir. 1997). That "preponderance," United States v. Marks, 365 F.3d 101, 105 (1st Cir. 2004), simply requires the government to present enough information, free from the strictures of the rules of evidence which do not apply to sentencing hearings, "provided that the information has sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy," Lopez, 299 F.3d at 89; Fed. R. Evid. 1101(d)(3), to make it more likely than not that the fact to be proved is true.

Download us_v. Morgan.pdf

September 3, 2004 at 02:47 PM

Complete SG Brief in Booker and Fanfan

A number of my savvy readers noticed that the Government's brief in Booker and Fanfan posted earlier this week lacked the table of contents and all those other introductory pages. Thanks to another FOB ("friend of blog"), I now have a complete version of this important document. It can be downloaded here:

Download complete_sg_bookerfanfan_brief.pdf

September 3, 2004 at 11:53 AM

Another interesting Ohio case

Yesterday in State v. Richards, 2004 Ohio 4633, 2004 Ohio App. LEXIS 4204 (Ohio App. Sept. 2, 2004), Judge James Sweeney in a dissent continued to spotlight Blakely issues in the application of Ohio's state sentencing laws. Recall that, as detailed here, Judge Sweeney and his colleague Judge Michael Corrigan had an interesting debate over the applicability and reach of Blakely in Ohio last week in State v. Taylor, 2004 WL 1900333, 2004-Ohio-4468 (Ohio App. Aug 26, 2004).

In Richards Judge Sweeney was simply calling for the defendant's sentence to be remanded for consideration of Blakely issues, but the case is interesting and noteworthy because it involved the imposition of a three-year sentence when the offense of conviction provided a statutory range of between one and five years. But, as Judge Sweeney correctly notes, under Ohio's statutory sentencing laws "the court could only deviate from the minimum sentence by making judicial findings beyond those either determined by a jury or stipulated to by the defendant." Specifically, in this case, the trial court imposed a sentence of three years rather than one year based on a finding that the "the shortest prison term will demean the seriousness of the offender's conduct or will not adequately protect the public." Ohio Revised Code § 2929.14(B).

I have discussed at length here how Ohio's laws governing the imposition of maximum sentences raise deep jurisprudential issues about the meaning and reach of Blakely. Judge Sweeney's dissenting opinion in Richards expressly highlights — and the majority's opinion in Richards implicitly rejects — that the same tough Blakely issues arise whenever an Ohio judge imposes a sentence above the statutory minimum.

Though I do not think these issues have yet come before the Ohio Supreme Court, it is only a matter of time before Buckeye Justices will need to start grappling with Blakely's meaning for Buckeye justice.

September 3, 2004 at 07:18 AM

More thoughtful California analysis

With great thanks to Jonathan Soglin at Criminal Appeal who first reported the news here, yesterday there was another important Blakely decision from a California intermediate appellate court in People v. Ochoa, no. D042215 (Cal. App. (4th Dist.), Sept. 2, 2004). In Ochoa, the court spoke thoughtful to the question of waiver and also concerning the applicability of Blakely to fact-finding by judges to support the imposition of imposing consecutive sentences.

On the waiver issue, the Ochoa court sensibly concluded that "because Blakely was decided after Ochoa's sentencing hearing, Ochoa cannot be said to have knowingly and intelligently waived any right to a jury trial relating to the imposition of a consecutive sentence by failing to raise such an objection at the hearing." On the judge's imposition of consecutive sentence, the Ochoa court emphasized the discretionary nature of the decision to impose consecutive sentence under California law:

[A]lthough there certainly is broad language in Blakely that could be interpreted to support the existence of a jury trial right in the face of any factual finding that affects the length of the sentence imposed, neither Blakely nor the cases that preceded it establish the right to a jury trial in connection with the imposition of consecutive sentences and in fact those cases suggest that a contrary conclusion applies in that context.

The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that a court may constitutionally exercise discretion in imposing sentence, and in doing so may consider various factors relating to the offense and the offender, provided that the sentence is "within the range provided by statute" for the charged offense....

This analysis applies here. Under California law, when a person is convicted of two or more crimes, the trial court has the discretion to impose the sentence on the subordinate counts consecutively or concurrently.... In light of the jury's finding (or the defendant's admission) of guilt on the charged offenses, the imposition of consecutive sentences does not exceed the statutory maximum penalty for those offenses and thus does not contravene the holding in Blakely.

September 3, 2004 at 06:49 AM

Thursday, September 02, 2004

The Eleventh Circuit Speaks!!

As if we did not have enough to read, the Eleventh Circuit just handed down a decision in US v. Reese, No. 03-13117 (11th Cir. Sept. 2, 2004), in which the court joins what is now a considerable majority of federal circuits in declining to apply Blakely to the US Sentencing Guidelines. Here's the key language:

In light of Edwards and our own precedent in Sanchez, the additional cases and reasoning discussed by the Fifth Circuit in Pineiro and the Sixth Circuit in Koch, as well as the Supreme Court's express avoidance of this issue with respect to the Guidelines in the Blakely opinion itself, we decline to conclude that Blakely compels an alteration of the established view of the Guidelines as a tool for channeling the sentencing court's discretion within a crime's minimum and maximum sentence provided in the United States Code, with that maximum being the only constitutionally relevant maximum sentence. Therefore, the district court did not err in imposing the four-level enhancement pursuant to USSG § 2K2.1(b)(5). We hold that district courts should continue to sentence pursuant to the Guidelines until such time as the Supreme Court rules on this issue.

The decision includes this interesting "homage" to the idea of alternative sentencing, although now repackaged with the interesting label "protective steps":

We acknowledge that two circuits have held that Blakely does apply to the Guidelines, and that it is very difficult to predict whether the Supreme Court will apply Blakely to the Guidelines, and, if it does, whether it will hold that the Guidelines fall in their entirety or only in part. In light of this instability, we recognize that district courts might deem it wise and appropriate to take protective steps in case the Guidelines are later found unconstitutional in whole or in part. However, we are reluctant to provide specific advice with respect to what protective steps, if any, might be appropriate to reduce confusion and protect against duplicative judicial efforts should the Supreme Court so rule. We realize that such appropriate and feasible steps might vary with each individual case.

September 2, 2004 at 04:59 PM

Swing(ing) Justices?

I have a lot more to say about all the Booker and Fanfan briefs filed yesterday (available here and here), but a thoughtful reader suggested an interesting idea/question to keep in mind when reading (or re-reading) the SG's brief. The idea/question is: "Who is the government attempting to peel off from the Blakely majority?"

As I have been repeatedly saying to the students in my sentencing seminar, there is an interesting history and story connected to each of the nine Justices in the whole Apprendi/Blakely line of cases. Because of their forceful opinions in a number of cases, it seems unlikely either Justice Stevens or Thomas is likely to shrink from applying Blakely to the federal guidelines.

Some might say the same about Justice Scalia, though the thoughtful reader notes that given Justice Scalia's "break from the pack in Harris and his much-rumored initial dissent in Ring," Justice Scalia might "be looking for ways to cabin the pro-defendant effects of his brightline position." Since Justice Scalia was the swing (silent) vote in Harris, this speculation is sensible. However, I really think Justice Scalia would have written Blakely much differently if he wanted to save the federal system, and I also think he is much too smart to not have realized the seismic impact his broad Blakely language would have on the federal system.

Justices Ginsburg and Souter have said the least "on the record" in this line of cases, though Justice Ginsberg wrote the important Ring decision (which extended Apprendi to capital sentencing and reversed a recent precedent to do so) and Justice Souter wrote the important Jones decision (which first articulated the key language that became the Apprendi rule). In addition, both Justices signed on to Justice Thomas' forceful dissent in Harris.

Finally, I also think it is worthwhile to speculate about whether any of the Blakely dissenters might now "switch teams." My instinct is that Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor would be unlikely to ever play a role in the federal aftershocks of Blakely's "Number 10 earthquake." But Justices Kennedy and Breyer have such a dynamic history in expressing their views about both the doctrines and policies of federal sentencing (consider cases like Koon and the public speeches they've both made about problems with federal sentencing policies and practices). And Justices Kennedy and Breyer have both in cases like Ring and Harris said interesting things about the logic and reach of Apprendi.

Though Justices Kennedy and Breyer obviously did not want to extended Apprendi to guideline sentencing, now that the Blakely earthquake has happened, I think either or both might be more inclined to actively help with post-Blakely clean-up efforts rather than continue complaining about the ground shaking.

September 2, 2004 at 01:26 PM

The SG and Severability

As with the arguments that Blakely does not apply to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, there is so much to say (and likely to be so many coming posts) about the argument that the "Guidelines as a whole are inapplicable in cases in which the Constitution would override the Guidelines' requirement that the district court find a sentence-enhancing fact." I have not even had a chance to read closely the specifics of the SG's argument on this issue, but two quick observations already seem essential:

1. On page 67 of the SG's brief, the government seems not only to concede, but also to contend, that the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA) is severable. Specifically, the government explains in detail that the provisions of 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) would still govern federal sentencing even if Blakely is held applicable to the federal guidelines. Thus, the real severability issue in Booker and Fanfan is apparently not whether some aspects of the federal sentencing system is severability, but rather only which aspects are severable. (Arguably, the emphasis in the Senators brief on the SRA as a "comprehensive plan" might be in tension with the SG's "pro-severability" claims, but I will leave it to others for now to debate this fine point.)

2. From a very quick read, it seems that the SG is completely ducking the question of whether, if Blakely applies to the federal guidelines, the guidelines can and should still apply in cases that do not raise any "Blakely factors." As noted here and here, at least two federal judges are on record (Judge Gertner in Meuffleman and Judge Presnell in King) as saying that, if the guidelines are wholly inapplicable in some federal cases, then they are wholly inapplicable in all federal cases. I was hoping to see the SG's brief address this critically important issue head on.

September 2, 2004 at 09:07 AM

Applying Blakely to the federal sentencing guidelines

There is so much to say about the arguments made by the SG in its merits brief (and by the USSC and the former federal judges in their amicus briefs) that "Blakely does not apply to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines." I suspect many posts (and I hope a lot of comments from readers) will over time allow me and others to think through all the aspects and implications of these arguments. For now, I want to make a few very general comments:

1. After Blakely, it is possible and perhaps helpful to set up a dichotomy between statutory structured sentencing systems like Washington's (which now must grant defendants the (waivable) right to a jury trial on any and all facts which raise the effective maximum sentence) and traditional indeterminate sentencing systems (in which judges have enormous and essentially unfettered discretion to consider (or not consider) any and all facts of interest to the sentencing judge). I find it truly remarkable that the SG and USSC are suggesting, and that a group of former federal judges are expressly stating, that the federal sentencing guidelines "more analogous" to a traditional indeterminate sentencing systems than to Washington's structured sentencing system.

2. Though all the briefs make a game effort at arguing that "Blakely does not apply to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines," I saw precious little argument in the briefs that Blakely should not apply to the FSG. I might find the arguments to distinguish the federal system more compelling if I could fully understand what would be so harmful about defendants having a (waivable) right to a jury trial on facts which raise their effective maximum sentence. I understand that there could be great harm in how Congress or others might respond to defendants having such a right. But I am not sure why a court's interpretation of the scope of individual rights can or should be influenced by the (speculated) response of other institutions to those rights.

3. As I discussed at some length in my analysis of the Sixth Circuit's decision in Koch (details here), many of the arguments put forward to distinguish the federal system structurally would be much more compelling if the federal sentencing guidelines were written by the Judicial Conference of the US — as Professor Kate Stith and Judge Jose Cabranes have recommended in their wonderful book Fear of Judging (at p. 159). But, as the SG's brief concedes at pp. 24-25, the USSC both in design and in operation is far more like, in Justice Scalia's words, a "junior-varisty Congress" than like a Judicial Branch coach. Moreover, as Steve Chanenson has so astutely noted in his recent article, Congress' recent passage of the PROTECT Act has constrained and transformed the USSC to make it more like a "traditional" legislative agency and less like a group of judges making sentencing rules for themselves.

September 2, 2004 at 08:38 AM

What Booker and Fanfan are about (and not about)

A quick read of the briefs submitted in Booker and Fanfan yesterday, especially the amicus briefs, could give one the impression that the Supreme Court's job in these cases is to decide the broad policy question of whether guideline sentencing reforms are a good idea. The "Senators brief" especially reads in this vein, and the way that brief frames the question presented is almost comical:

Whether, or to what extent, the Court should give effect to the intent of Congress in enacting the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 to eliminate the intolerable disparities that had plagued the federal sentencing system by creating an integrated and cohesive sentencing guidelines system.

In my view, it is inaccurate and quite dangerous to understand or frame the issues in Booker and Fanfan in this way; there is absolutely no way, no matter what the Supreme Court says, that the decision in these cases will formally or even functionally destroy the possibility of any guideline sentencing reforms.

Indeed, this is why I think it is very significant that states have not filed any amicus briefs in support of petitioners. States apparently recognize, correctly in my view, the truth in Justice Scalia's statement in Blakely that this line of cases "is not about whether determinate sentencing is constitutional, only about how it can be implemented in a way that respects the Sixth Amendment." Kansas retained its guideline system even after its state Supreme Court gave Apprendi a broad reading, and I think the states all realize that they can continue modern sentencing reform efforts even if defendants are given broad procedural rights at sentencing.

Booker and Fanfan are not about the theory or soundness of guideline reforms in general. The cases are both formally and functionally about what rights defendants have under the Sixth Amendment (and the Due Process Clause). Obviously, the definition of these rights will necessarily impact how jurisdictions can implement guideline reforms, and also profoundly impact whether the federal sentencing system can continue to operate in its current form. But it is in my view misguided and harmful to even suggest that the Supreme Court inthese cases is in the role of a super-legislature with the task of deciding whether the general policies motivating sentencing reform are justifiable.

If observers (and legal realists) feel it is appropriate to frame Booker and Fanfan as cases about sentencing policy rather than as cases about constitutional doctrine, I think the dialogue should move down one level of abstraction. Rather than defended the broad value of guideline sentencing reforms in general, I would like to hear a defense of the current federal sentencing system in operation. Ironically, given all the strong evidence that the exercise of prosecutorial discretion and other forces has produced great disparities in the operation of the federal guidelines (see, e.g., this report from the USSC on disparities in substantial assistance departures), a good case could be made that striking down the federal system in Booker and Fanfan would "give effect to the intent of Congress in enacting the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 to eliminate ... intolerable disparities."

September 2, 2004 at 07:50 AM

And my commentary begins...

The array of interesting (and lengthy) briefs filed in Booker and Fanfan have my mind racing with comments and questions, and I am very pleased to see others already sharing thoughtful commentary in the comments sections of the blog.

In an effort to organize my own thoughts, and perhaps the thoughts of others, I will try sub-dividing my commentary, at least for now, into three broad categories: (1) the general scope, meaning and impact of the Booker and Fanfan cases, (2) the applicability of Blakely to the federal sentencing guidelines, and (3) the severability of the federal sentencing guidelines if Blakely applies. (I have created new topical archives categories for each of these, and will start this morning with a brief post on each subject.)

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, I want first to generally praise the work of the amici whom have already spoken and also to highly encourage additional amicus efforts. Whatever one thinks of the substance of the points made in the amici briefs submitted so far, it is extremely valuable for the Supreme Court in Booker and Fanfan to hear a range of perspectives from a range of persons, institutions and branches.

Notably, in addition to the "official" executive branch view of Booker and Fanfan coming from the SG's office, yesterday we received views from the legislative branch in a brief from three US Senators, from the judicial branch in a brief from a group of former federal judges, and an agency view in a brief from the US Sentencing Commission. (As future commentary will highlight, I think it is much more appropriate to describe the USSC as an agency in general, despite its "official" placement in the Judicial Branch.)

At this moment, it is fun to speculate about what competing views we might hear in the next round of briefing: will other legislators or judges write amicus briefs in support of respondents? Given all the vocal complaints by both former and current judges about the federal sentencing system, might a group of judges forcefully express these views in an amicus brief? (Do the canons of judicial ethics even allow active judges to file an amicus brief in a case of this nature? Could and will the various official and unofficial judicial organizations file a brief?)

It also seems worth noting who has not yet filed a brief. To my knowledge, no state or group of states has filed a brief in support of the petitioners. In addition, and perhaps even more telling, I have heard no mention of a brief from any law enforcement agency or advocacy group representing police or prosecutors.

September 2, 2004 at 06:40 AM

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

The judges' amicus brief

With sincere thanks yet again to my many new friends "in the field," I now have a copy of (and provide below) the brief submitted on behalf of a group of former federal judges (who were apparently led by former SDNY US District Judge John Martin).

Download booker_fanfan_judges_amicus.pdf

I am slowly but surely "consuming" all the rich and interesting briefs filed today, and I hope to comment at length about them tomorrow and throughout the long weekend ahead.

September 1, 2004 at 11:58 PM

And the briefing begins...

I have on good authority that two amicus briefs have already been filed in Booker and Fanfan. One is reportedly on behalf of "an ad hoc group of former federal judges in support of neither party," and the group apparently consists of 19 former judges. Unfortunately, I do not (yet) have an electronic copy of that brief.

I do have a copy linked below of the other brief, which is in support of the petitioner and comes from three noteworthy US Senators: The Honorable Orrin G. Hatch, The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy and The Honorable Dianne Feinstein. The brief's statement of the question presented should give you a flavor for its contents:

Whether, or to what extent, the Court should give effect to the intent of Congress in enacting the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 to eliminate the intolerable disparities that had plagued the federal sentencing system by creating an integrated and cohesive sentencing guidelines system.

Download booker.senate.amicus.pdf

Though I have to dash to class and then a faculty meeting, I hope to have more information about all of today's briefing (and also more documents for downloading) before the close of business today.

UPDATE: With thanks to many "field correspondents," I now have and provide below the Solicitor General's brief in Booker and Fanfan. More briefs will be posted if and when I get them, and commentary will be posted in the wee hours.

Download sgs_booker_and_fanfan_brief.pdf

MORE: With thanks to another "field correspondent," I now have and provide below the USSC's brief in Booker and Fanfan.

Download ussc_amicus_brief_booker_and_fanfan.pdf

September 1, 2004 at 02:40 PM

Sex offender sentencing

The law and policy of sex offender sentencing is always interesting and often quite depressing. My FSR co-editor Professor Nora Demleitner has put together a number of Federal Sentencing Reporter issues related to this topic, including this recent FSR issue focused particularly on risk assessment. And as many know, the infamous Feeney Amendment to the PROTECT Act provided for the most dramatic changes to federal sentencing in the arena of sex offenses — even though, as I discuss in Deciphering a Rosetta Stone of Sentencing Reform, 15 Fed. Sent. Rep. 307 (June 2003), the initial impetus for reform seemed to flow from DOJ concerns about undue leniency in white-collar cases.

Two recent cases involving sex offenders have today caught my attention. First, earlier this week, the Supreme Court of California, in People v. Barker, ruled that a sex offender "just forgetting to register" could be convicted as a "willful" violator of the state's sex offender registration requirements. Though the case is principally about the meaning of "willful," I found staggering the fact that Barker, by forgetting to register in a timely manner (he had registered properly before), could have received under the operation of California's three-strikes law a sentence of 25 years to life! Interestingly, the trial judge in Barker's case used his discretion to dismiss "all but one of his 10 prior strike convictions in the interests of justice" so that he could sentence Barker to only 9 years' imprisonment for his failure to register.

Second, as briefly noted last week, a Michigan state judge declared Michigan's state sentencing guidelines unconstitutional after Blakely. I was graciously provided with a copy of the ruling by Judge Timothy Pickard, in which he explains his view that parts of Michigan sentencing law involve mandatory guidelines and that, following the logic of Judge Cassell's opinion in Croxford, no part of the Michigan system should be applied when one part is constitutionally defective. Though I do not know enough about Michigan law to comment on the soundness of this ruling, it is noteworthy that this article suggests that Judge Pickard reached his conclusion in order to be able to sentence a child molester to a much longer prison sentence than the state guidelines provided.

September 1, 2004 at 01:42 PM

First official Blakely reversal in California

As Jonathan Soglin reports here over at Criminal Appeal, the first "official" California Blakely reversal happened yesterday in People v. Perry, No. A104398 (Cal. Ct. App. Aug. 31, 2004). The case involved the imposition of a four year upper-term sentence after defendant's guilty plea to "infliction of corporal injury to a cohabitant resulting in a traumatic condition." The court explained:

In this case, the trial court imposed the aggravated term based on the following factors: (1) "the defendant was armed with or used a weapon at the time of the commission of the offense;" (2) "the defendant has engaged in violent conduct which indicates he’s a danger to society;" (3) "his prior convictions as an adult are numerous and of increasing seriousness;" (4) "he was on a grant of summary probation at the time this crime was committed;" (5) "the defendant’s prior performance on summary probation has been unsatisfactory." Because under Blakely, at least four of these five factors must be determined by a jury, we conclude the trial court erred.

In expanding upon this conclusion, the court interestingly speculated on the scope of the "prior convictions" exceptions for purposes of applying factor (3) above. But then the court, after explaining its review standards, held that reversal was still required:

We need not decide whether the trial court (rather than the jury) may, after Blakely, find that defendant's crimes were of increasing seriousness, because we cannot determine, from this record, whether the four improper factors were "determinative" for the trial court. To put it another way, we cannot determine whether the trial court would have imposed the upper term based solely on defendant's increasing criminality.

Jonathan Soglin, who surely knows California law much better than I do, comments that if the California Supreme Court "follows this approach, and it should, reversals are likely in many other cases."

September 1, 2004 at 09:36 AM

What exactly are Blakely "facts"?

A group of cases handed down on Tuesday by the Minnesota intermediate appellate courts continued the state's trend of punting Blakely claims back to sentencing courts for initial briefing and consideration. See, e.g., State v. Vance, 2004 WL 1925143 (Minn. App. Aug 31, 2004); Smith v. State, 2004 WL 1925436 (Minn. App. Aug. 31, 2004); State v. Griffin, 2004 WL 1925829 (Minn. App. Aug. 31, 2004). A prior series of Minnesota remands on Blakely grounds can be found here .

However, two other recent opinions from Minnesota provide more examples of efforts to read Blakely narrowly and also raise issues discussed in conjunction with Ohio law in this formalism meets functionality post. In State v. Henderson, 2004 WL 1925395 (Minn. App. Aug. 31, 2004), the court holds that "Blakely does not apply" to a judge's upward departure from the guidelines based on a judicial finding that the defendant's "present offense is a felony that was committed as a part of a pattern of criminal conduct." And in State v. Allen, 2004 WL 1925881 (Minn. App. Aug. 31, 2004), the court concludes that "Blakely does not appear applicable" in a case involving an upward departure based on a judicial finding that the defendant was "not amenable to probation." Both cases, without much analysis, seem to be saying that the judge's justification for the enhancement was based on a "legal" conclusion, not a factual finding that implicates Blakely.

The notion that Blakely only requires narrow jury fact-finding, and still permits judges to make distinct "legal" sentencing determinations, finds some support in Justice Scalia's concurring opinion in Ring v. Arizona. In explaining his view of the Court's holding that juries must find the aggravating factors which justify the death penalty, Justice Scalia emphasizes that:

today's judgment has nothing to do with jury sentencing. What today’s decision says is that the jury must find the existence of the fact that an aggravating factor existed. Those States that leave the ultimate life-or-death decision to the judge may continue to do so — by requiring a prior jury finding of aggravating factor in the sentencing phase or, more simply, by placing the aggravating-factor determination (where it logically belongs anyway) in the guilt phase.

I read this passage to suggest that, at least in Justice Scalia's view, state law might still authorize judges to make a "legal" conclusion to enhance a sentence as long as that conclusion is based on a fact found by a jury or admitted by the defendant. Yet, spinning out this argument eventually run smack into the Blakely holding itself: arguably the sentencing judge's finding of "deliberate cruelty" was not a pure finding of fact, but rather involved a conclusion of law based on some facts that may have been admitted by the defendant. Moreover, Justice Scalia's Blakely opinion speaks of limits on the judges' sentencing authority "without any additional findings."

In other words, though Blakely and its predecessors speak of juries as finders of facts, perhaps the proper reading of the decision is that a jury must make any and all findings of whatever nature that are required by state law to permit an enhanced sentence. That is, Blakely may mean that if state law requires any finding to authoirze an increased punishment — whether that finding is called a question of fact or a question of law or Mary Jane — then that finding must be made by a jury or admitted by the defendant. If this is the proper understanding of Blakely, then I think the Minnesota decisions in Henderson and Allen are erroneous.

September 1, 2004 at 01:17 AM

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