Source: http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/543/04-104/dissent4.html
Timestamp: 2014-07-25 10:44:30
Document Index: 262060050

Matched Legal Cases: ['§3551', '§991', '§5', '§994', '§1', '§3']

states court of appeals for the first circuit[January 12, 2005] Justice Breyer, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Kennedy join, dissenting in part.
The Court today applies its decisions in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000), and Blakely v. Washington, 542 U. S. ___ (2004), to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The Court 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 disagree with the Court’s conclusion. I find nothing in the Sixth Amendment that forbids a sentencing judge to determine (as judges at sentencing have traditionally determined)the manner or way in whichthe offender carried out the crime of which he was convicted.
The Court’s substantive holding rests upon its decisions in Apprendi, supra, and Blakely, supra.In Apprendi, the Court held that the Sixth Amendmentrequires juries to find beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of “any fact that increases the penalty for a crime” beyond “the prescribed statutory maximum.” 530 U. S., at 490 (emphasis added). In Blakely, the Court defined the latter term as “the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant.” 542 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7) (emphasis in original). Today, the Court applies its Blakely definition to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. I continue to disagree with the constitutional analysis the Court set forth in Apprendi and in Blakely. But even were I to accept that analysis as valid, I would disagree with the way in which the Court applies it here.I
The Chief Justice, Justice O’Connor, Justice Kennedy, and I have previously explained at length why we cannot accept the Court’s constitutional analysis. See Blakely, 542 U. S., at ___ (O’Connor, J., dissenting); id., at ___ (Kennedy, J., dissenting); id., at ___ (Breyer, J., dissenting); Harris v. United States, 536 U. S. 545, 549–550 (2002) (Kennedy, J., opinion of the Court); id., at 569–572 (Breyer, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 523–554 (O’Connor, J., dissenting); id., at 555–556 (Breyer, J., dissenting); Jones v. United States, 526 U. S. 227, 264–272 (1999) (Kennedy, J., dissenting); Monge v. California, 524 U. S. 721, 728–729 (1998) (O’Connor, J., opinion of the Court); McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79, 86–91 (1986) (Rehnquist, C. J., opinion of the Court). For one thing, we have found the Court’s historical argument unpersuasive. See Blakely, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 10) (O’Connor, J., dissenting); Apprendi, supra, at 525–528 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). Indeed, the Court’s opinion today illustrates the historical mistake upon which its conclusions rest. The Court reiterates its view that the right of “ ‘trial by jury has been understood to require’ ” a jury trial for determination of “ ‘the truth of every accusation.’ ” Ante, at 14 (opinion of Stevens, J.) (quoting Apprendi, supra, at 477) (emphasis in original). This claim makes historical sense insofar as an “accusation” encompasses each factual element of the crime of which a defendant is accused. See, e.g., United States v. Gaudin, 515 U. S. 506, 509–510, 522–523 (1995). But the key question here is whether that word also encompasses sentencing facts—facts about the offender (say, recidivism) or about the way in which the offender committed the crime (say, the seriousness of the injury or the amount stolen) that help a sentencing judge determine a convicted offender’s specific sentence.
History does not support a “right to jury trial” in respect to sentencing facts. Traditionally, the law has distinguished between facts that are elements of crimes and facts that are relevant only to sentencing. See, e.g., Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224, 228 (1998); Witte v. United States, 515 U. S. 389, 399 (1995); United States v. Watts, 519 U. S. 148, 154 (1997) (per curiam);United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U. S. 87, 97 (1993); Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361, 396 (1989). Traditionally, federal law has looked to judges, not to juries, to resolve disputes about sentencing facts. See, e.g., Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 32(a). Traditionally, those familiar with the criminal justice system have found separate, postconviction judge-run sentencing procedures sensible given the difficulty of obtaining relevant sentencing information before the moment of conviction. They have found those proceedings practical given the impracticality of the alternatives, say, two-stage (guilt, sentence) jury procedures. See, e.g., Judicial Conference of the United States, Committee on Defender Services, Subcommittee on Federal Death Penalty Cases, Federal Death Penalty Cases: Recommendations Concerning the Cost and Quality of Defense Representation 9–10 (May 1998). And, despite the absence of jury determinations, they have found those proceedings fair as long as the convicted offender has the opportunity to contest a claimed fact before the judge, and as long as the sentence falls within the maximum of the range that a congressional statute specifically sets forth.
Indeed, it is difficult for the Court to find historical support other than in two recent cases, Apprendi and Blakely—cases that we, like lower courts, read not as confirming, but as confounding a pre-Apprendi,pre-Blakely legal tradition that stretches back a century or more. See, e.g., Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241, 246 (1949); cf., e.g., 375 F. 3d 508, 514 (CA7 2004) (case below) (“Blakely redefined ‘statutory maximum’ ”); United States v. Ameline, 376 F. 3d 967, 973 (CA9 2004) (“Blakely court worked a sea change in the body of sentencing law”); United States v. Pineiro, 377 F. 3d 464, 468–469 (CA5 2004) (same); see also United States v. Penaranda, 375 F. 3d 238, 243, n. 5 (CA2 2004) (same, collecting cases).
The upshot is that the Court’s Sixth Amendment decisions—Apprendi,Blakely, and today’s—deprive Congress and state legislatures of authority that is constitutionally theirs. Cf. Blakely, supra, at ___ (Kennedy, J., dissenting); Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 544–545 (O’Connor, J., dissenting); id., at 560–564 (Breyer, J., dissenting). The “sentencing function long has been a peculiarly shared responsibility among the Branches of Government.” Mistretta, supra, at 390. Congress’ share of this joint responsibility has long included not only the power to define crimes (by enacting statutes setting forth their factual elements) but also the power to specify sentences, whether by setting forth a range of individual-crime-related sentences (say, 0 to 10 years’ imprisonment for bank robbery) or by identifying sentencing factors that permit or require a judge to impose higher or lower sentences in particular circumstances. See, e.g., Almendarez-Torres, 523 U. S., at 228; McMillan, 477 U. S., at 85.
These considerations—of history, of constitutionally relevant consequences, and of constitutional authority—have been more fully discussed in other opinions. See, e.g., Blakely, supra, at ___ (O’Connor, J., dissenting); id., at ___ (Kennedy, J., dissenting); id., at ___ (Breyer, J., dissenting); Harris,536 U. S., at 549–550, 569–572; Apprendi, supra, at 523–554, 555–556; McMillan, supra, at 86–91. I need not elaborate them further.II
Although the considerations just mentioned did not dissuade the Court from its holdings in Apprendi and Blakely, I should have hoped they would have dissuaded the Court from extending those holdings to the statute and Guidelines at issue here. See Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, as amended, 18 U. S. C. §3551 et seq., 28 U. S. C. §991 et seq.; United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual (Nov. 2003) (USSG). Legal logic does not require that extension, for there are key differences. First, the Federal Guidelines are not statutes. The rules they set forth are administrative, not statutory, in nature. Members, not of Congress, but of a Judicial Branch Commission, wrote those rules. The rules do not “establis[h] minimum and maximum penalties” for individual crimes, but guide sentencing courts, only to a degree, “fetter[ing] the discretion of sentencing judges to do what they have done for generations—impose sentences within the broad limits established by Congress.” Mistretta, 488 U. S., at 396; see also USSG §5G1.1; cf. Witte, 515 U. S., at 399 (explaining that the Guidelines range “still falls within the scope of the legislatively authorized penalty”). The rules do not create a new set of legislatively determined sentences so much as they reflect, organize, rationalize, and modify an old set of judicially determined pre-Guidelines sentences. See 28 U. S. C. §994(a); USSG §1A1.1, editorial note, §3, pp. 2–4 (describing the Commission’s empirical approach). Thus, the rules do not, in Apprendi’s words, set forth a “prescribed statutory maximum,” 530 U. S., at 490 (emphasis added), as the law has traditionally understood that phrase.
At the same time, to extend Blakely’sholding to administratively written sentencing rules risks added legal confusion and uncertainty. Read literally, Blakely’s language would include within Apprendi’s strictures a host of nonstatutory sentencing determinations, including appellate court decisions delineating the limits of the legally “reasonable.” (Imagine an appellate opinion that says a sentence for ordinary robbery greater than five years is unreasonably long unless a special factor, such as possession of a gun, is present.) Indeed, read literally, Blakely’sholding would apply to a single judge’s determination of the factors that make a particular sentence disproportionate or proportionate. (Imagine a single judge setting forth, as a binding rule of law, the legal proposition about robbery sentences just mentioned.) Appellate courts’ efforts to define the limits of the “reasonable” of course would fall outside Blakely’s scope. But they would do so, not because they escape Blakely’s literal language, butbecause they are not legislative efforts to create limits. Neither are the Guidelines legislative efforts. See Mistretta, supra, at 412.
These differences distinguish these cases from Apprendi and Blakely. They offer a principled basis for refusing to extend Apprendi’s rule to these cases.III