This week's U.S. Supreme Court decision in Blakely v. Washington held that "only juries, not judges, may increase criminal sentences beyond the maximums suggested by statutory guidelines, a decision that throws into doubt sentencing procedures used by nine states and possibly the federal government," according to an article in the Washington Post cited in this Indiana Law Blog entry yesterday.
The relevant facts, according to a NY Times story also cited in the earlier entry, were: "In the case before the court on Thursday, a man pleaded guilty to kidnapping his estranged wife, a crime that under Washington law ordinarily carries a maximum sentence of 53 months. At sentencing, however, the judge added an extra 37 months, based on his finding that the defendant, Ralph H. Blakely, Jr., had acted with 'deliberate cruelty.'"
What about Indiana? This article today in the Gary Post Tribune reports:
Porter Superior Court Judge Roger Bradford said Friday Indiana has sentencing ranges, taking into account mitigating and aggravating circumstances, but no provision for jury involvement, with the exception of recommending the death penalty.[More] An analysis by Adam Liptak, to appear in the Sunday NY Times, reports:If someone is charged with a D felony, for example, Bradford said the sentencing range is from six months to three years. Judges weigh mitigating and aggravating factors in determining the sentencing length. There is no provision to sentence beyond the maximum limit, he said.
Superior Court Judge Bill Alexa said there is flexibility in length of sentence under Indiana law, including a murder conviction, with a sentencing range of 45 to 65 years. For an A felony, the range is 20 to 50 years; B felony, 6 to 20 years; and C felony, 2 to 8 years.
Senior Judge Thomas Webber, who retired as a Superior Court Judge and works part-time in the court system, said the state of Washington appears to have narrower guidelines than Indiana for sentencing, similar to the federal courts. The Supreme Court decision should have no impact on Indiana courts, Webber said.
Attorney David Welter, supervisor of the criminal side of the Valparaiso University law clinic, said for the most part the high court ruling won’t affect criminal cases in Indiana. There could be rare exceptions under a plea agreement or guilty plea without an agreement imposing limits, Welter said.
Thursday's decision requires any factor that increases a criminal sentence, except for prior convictions, to be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Many sentencing schemes allow or require judges to impose longer sentences based on all sorts of criteria, including the defendant's background and the nature and severity of his crime.Update 6/27/04] An editorial today (Sunday) in the Washington Post is a must read. It begins:The decision may also affect sentencing laws in at least seven states in addition to Washington and the federal system, said Kevin R. Reitz, an expert on sentencing at the University of Colorado. In all of those jurisdictions, many people sentenced in recent years may be expected to challenge their sentences. And prosecutors, defendants and judges in pending and new cases will face an altered landscape.
"It throws the whole country's criminal system into turmoil," said Professor [Frank O. Bowman, an author of a treatise on sentencing law], who teaches law at Indiana University. * * *
[U]nclear is whether the decision will give judges more or less power in deciding sentences. The decision seemed to endorse both traditional sentencing schemes that leave sentences entirely up to judges so long as they do not exceed statutory maximums and schemes that designate fixed sentences for given crimes. Only a middle approach, in which judges are required to make their own factual findings to increase sentences, was held unconstitutional.
Sentencing guidelines that allow or require judges to impose more lenient sentences based on mitigating factors are apparently unaffected.
THE SUPREME COURT dropped a bombshell on the world of criminal sentencing last week. The case, Blakely v. Washington, is the latest and most dramatic in a line of cases in which an ideologically eclectic five-member majority has sought to breathe new life into the right to trial by jury. The cause seems noble. But this line of cases has been a Pandora's box, opened now by the Blakely decision. The decision casts grave and unwarranted constitutional doubt on sentencing regimes around the country, including federal sentencing guidelines, that have been designed to make punishments more predictable and more evenly applied.And the Christian Science Monitor has this 6/28/04 story, headlined "Supreme Court throws sentencing guidelines into doubt: A Washington State case prompts other states, as well as federal officials, to reexamine their own sentencing systems." A quote:
Indeed, by declaring that Blakely's sentence violates the US Constitution, the high court has set off a flurry of activity in other states and within the federal government to determine if their own systems might also be unconstitutional. "There will be tremendous dislocation in any number of state systems and the federal system," says Kevin Reitz, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Law in Boulder and an expert on state sentencing-guideline systems.Posted by Marcia Oddi at June 26, 2004 05:54 PMProfessor Reitz says roughly half of the 15 states with guideline systems will be affected by the Blakely decision. Oregon and North Carolina may be particularly vulnerable to challenges, he says. But most in jeopardy is the federal system with its large number of judicially enhanced sentences, he says.
"Up to 90 percent of federal sentences will run afoul of Blakely, as opposed to 10 percent of sentences in state systems," he says.