The Munster Times has a story today on the impact of Blakely v. Washington on federal defendants. The headline is "Defendants to get more leverage at sentencing - FEDERAL COURT: U.S. Supreme Court ruling gives juries more say in determining prison terms." Some quotes:
HAMMOND -- The fishing may not be so good anymore for federal prosecutors who used to reel in criminal defendants with unpleasant plea bargains that were still better than being harpooned by Draconian sentencing guidelines.Other Indiana Law Blog entries on Blakely include: 6/25/04 and 6/26/04.Prosecutors and defense lawyers are still scrambling to assess the impact of last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling giving defendants more protection against enlarged prison terms.
"It may not put (plea negotiations) on complete hold, but we definitely are going to have to shift gears a little," David Capp, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana, said last week.
Jerome T. Flynn, executive director of the Northern District of Indiana Federal Community Defender Inc., which represents indigent criminals in federal court, said, "You cannot go into a sentencing now or enter into a plea agreement without understanding or getting a feel for the consequences of that case."
The Supreme Court ruled June 24 that a judge cannot lengthen a criminal's sentence using facts not considered by a jury.
[More] "High Court May Have to Revisit Sentencing" is the headline to this AP story today. Some quotes:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Just starting their summer break, Supreme Court justices may have to deal quickly with fallout from their decision that is changing the way judges sentence convicted criminals. * * *[AP link via How Appealing]The government wants clarification of the June 24 ruling that appears to give defendants a right to demand that every fact that could lengthen a sentence be put to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Under procedures now common in federal and state courthouses, judges make many routine factual determinations, such as the quantity of drugs seized in a raid, whether a gun was used in the crime and how much money is at issue in a fraud case.
[Update 7/6/04] "Ruling could revamp sentencing system" is the headline to this story this afternoon in Long Island New York's Newsday. Some quotes:
A 17-year-old system of sentencing in the federal courts has likely been gutted by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, experts say, and judges and prosecutors nationwide are feverishly trying to figure out what to do next. * * *Posted by Marcia Oddi at July 5, 2004 03:27 PM"When a judge inflicts punishment that the jury's verdict alone does not allow ... the judge exceeds his proper authority," said the majority's decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia. * * *
[T]he high court's minority judges said, the opinion effectively scuttles the federal sentencing guidelines, first put into place in the 1980s.
"What I have feared most has now come to pass," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the dissenters. "Over 20 years of sentencing reform are all but lost and tens of thousands of criminal judgments are in jeopardy." * * *
The federal sentencing guidelines provided judges with a detailed framework from which so-called upward or downward departures could be imposed, depending on factors such as the defendant's cooperation with prosecutors.
Prior to the Blakely decision, federal judges could consider factors in sentencing that were not heard by a jury or articulated in a guilty plea. In addition, the burden of proof for a judge at a sentencing hearing is lower than at trial, so the judge could even consider conduct that a jury acquitted the defendant of.
But the guidelines have been increasingly a target for criticism by judges who say they are often constrained to impose unduly harsh sentences.
"The court could not have assembled this majority [of Supreme Court judges] were it not for years of growing discontent among the federal judiciary about the drift of federal sentencing policy ... Judges have been increasingly upset about their decreasing degree of authority over sentencing," said Indiana University law professor Frank O. Bowman, an expert in federal sentencing.
Another case, decided in 2000, known as Apprendi v. New Jersey, first signaled the Supreme Court's resolve to limit judicial discretion in tacking on additional prison time. In Apprendi, the court ruled that a judge can't make a unilateral decision to go beyond the maximum sentence allowed by law unless it is the result of a jury finding or admission of guilt. The Blakely decision has gone even further, experts say. Now, a judge can't depart from the federal sentencing guidelines in any way that increases the defendant's prison time - unless it is based on a jury finding or admission of guilt.