Supreme Court Says Federal Sentencing Guidelines Not Mandatory http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3336-2005Jan12?language=printer
By Fred Barbash Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, January 12, 2005; 1:20 PM The Supreme Court today declared unconstitutional a portion of the nation's federal sentencing law and said that federal judges are no longer obligated to follow the controversial system of sentencing guidelines established by Congress in 1984. The long-awaited decision, one of the most significant criminal cases in years, effectively converted the guidelines from mandatory status to advisory status, meaning that judges must consider them rather than necessarily follow them. The greatest uncertainty today was the extent to which the ruling will permit appeals by individuals already sentenced under the guidelines. The central problem with the guidelines, the court said in its 5-4 decision, is that they allow convicted criminals to have their sentences increased on the basis of facts that are unproven before a jury in court. In one of today's cases, for example, a judge increased the sentence of a Wisconsin man by 10 years for possessing more crack than the jury found he had. In a case last year, Blakely v. Washington, the court struck down Washington state's sentencing guidelines because, like the federal guidelines, they permitted judges to boost sentences based on their own post-conviction fact-finding. The practice, the court said, violates the right to a trial by jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. Although the court said in Blakely that it did not address the federal guidelines, the similarities between Washington's system and the federal system were such that defense lawyers across the country immediately began bombarding courts with Blakely challenges to their clients' sentences. Lower courts have issued differing rulings in response, and some federal prosecutors have felt obliged to redraft indictments to make sure they conform to Blakely. The justices were greatly divided in today's decision in United States v. Booker, over the constitutional argument as well as over the remedy for the constitutional flaw. One opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, David Souter, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. All five agreed that the practice violated the Sixth Amendment. All in the group but Ginsburg, however, said the remedy should be to let juries make the determination about enhancing a sentence. Another group of five, led by Justice Stephen Breyer and joined by Ginsburg, among others, held that the only remedy was to invalidate part of the actual law. "So modified," Breyer wrote, the guidelines become "effectively advisory." The holding permits a judge to "consider guidelines ranges" for sentencing but "permits the court to tailor the sentence in light of other statutory concerns as well." Breyer, joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, restated their view that the sentencing guideline system does not violate the constitution at all. "The Court," Breyer wrote, "holds that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find sentencing facts -- facts about the way in which an offender committed the crime -- where those facts would move an offender from lower to higher Guidelines ranges. . . . I find nothing in the Sixth Amendment that forbids a sentencing judge to determine the manner or way in which the offender carried out the crime of which he was convicted." In 1984, Congress established the United States Sentencing Commission as an independent agency within the judicial branch. The commission's first set of guidelines took effect in 1987 and survived a Supreme Court test unrelated to the Sixth Amendment in 1989. The judges and other experts who make up the seven-member panel amend the guidelines each year, after Congress has had 180 days to veto any proposed changes. Under the guidelines, judges are given a variety of factors to consider in deciding how harshly to punish within the range of penalties established by law. In a typical case, such as one before the court now, U.S. v. Booker, No. 04-104, an accused drug trafficker either pleads guilty or is convicted by a jury of selling cocaine, and then a government probation officer presents the judge with findings as to the exact amount of drugs involved. A jury found that Freddie Booker had trafficked more than 50 grams of cocaine. The judge found that the actual amount was 658.5 grams, that Booker had perjured himself at trial and that he had 23 prior convictions. The result under the guidelines: a sentence of 30 years, far longer than Booker would have gotten for trafficking 50 grams. In its brief defending the guidelines, the Bush administration argued that Blakely should not apply to the federal guidelines because, unlike the Washington state guidelines, they were created not directly by statute but by a commission within the judicial branch. Stevens and a majority dismissed that contention as "constitutionally irrelevant." The Sixth Amendment applies to guidelines as well as to statute, he wrote. "This is a major victory for those federal judges who have long complained" about the restrictive aspects of the guidelines, said Thomas C. Goldstein, who represented the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in the case. "Where federal judges previously were required to follow this rigorous sentencing guideline system, now those guidelines are advisory." It is, he said, "the most significant criminal law ruling in a decade" though "its net effect in individual cases is yet to be seen." Dean Strang, co counsel, for defendant Freddie J. Booker, said the "net effect is 'guidelines lite.' . . . The guidelines will no longer be binding." Judges will "now treat the federal guidelines in their entirety as advisory," to be consulted for determining a sentences reasonableness. "Up until today, absent extraordinary circumstances, federal judges were to impose a sentence within a binding guideline range." You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
