Opinion ID: 3040501
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: A Substantive Look at the Use of

Text: Acquitted Conduct The Supreme Court’s goal in the Apprendi line of cases was not to exalt the “abstract dignity of the statutory maximum,” Faust, 456 F.3d at 1350, but to preserve the “great bulwark of [our] civil and political liberties,” Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 477, “under a new set of circumstances.” Booker, 543 U.S. at 237. The Court’s Sixth Amendment analytical approach was “one not of form, but of effect,” Ring, 536 U.S. at 604 (quoting Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 494), and “reflects not just respect for longstanding precedent, but the need to give intelligible content to the right of jury trial.” Blakely, 542 U.S. at 305. Consequently, any Sixth Amendment sentencing analysis, post-Booker (post-Apprendi, really), must focus on the substantive goal of ensuring the jury trial right’s continued vitality in a new legal context. This requirement was made abundantly clear in Booker, when the government attempted to distinguish Booker and Apprendi on formal grounds. The government argued that Apprendi was not controlling because its holding addressed only statutory maxima and not Guidelines ranges. In response, the Court declared, “[m]ore important than the language used in our holding in Apprendi are the principles we sought to vindicate. Those principles are unquestionably applicable to the Guidelines.” Booker, 543 U.S. at 238. The principles cited by the Court included the Framers’ fear of “judicial despotism” and “arbitrary punishments upon arbitrary convictions” — fears guarded against by the judgment of a defendant’s peers. Id. at 238-39 (requiring that “the truth of every accusation . . . should afterwards be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of [the defendant’s] equals and neighbors.”). These principles apply with even greater force to the consideration of acquitted conduct at sentencing. By considering acquitted conduct, a judge thwarts the express will of the jury UNITED STATES v. MERCADO 873 — as opposed to the implicit or imputed will of the legislature that is thwarted by a sentence above the statutory maximum — and imposes a punishment based on conduct for which the government tried, but failed, to get a conviction. Such a sentence has little relation to the actual conviction, and is based on an accusation that failed to receive confirmation from the defendant’s equals and neighbors. In order to guarantee that the jury remains capable of protecting the accused against judge, prosecutor, and the central government, the Court now insists that “the judge’s authority to sentence [must] derive[ ] wholly from the jury’s verdict. Without that restriction, the jury would not exercise the control that the Framers intended.” Blakely, 542 U.S. at 306 (emphasis added); see also Booker, 543 U.S. at 235 (finding it unacceptable when “the jury’s verdict alone does not authorize the sentence.”); Ring, 536 U.S. at 602 (holding Arizona death penalty statute unconstitutional because it exposed defendant to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury verdict); Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 494 (explaining that the relevant inquiry is whether “the required finding expose[s] the defendant to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury’s guilty verdict”). The jury’s powers in criminal cases are confined to issuing verdicts. As such, any authorization or withholding of authorization must be communicated through the jury’s verdict, and the jury’s ability to insulate defendants from the government — as the Constitution requires — is entirely dependent upon the integrity of its verdict. As the connection between verdict and punishment erodes, the significance of the jury’s verdict is correspondingly diminished. Such attenuation makes it increasingly unlikely that the jury verdict has authorized the ensuing punishment. Just because the jury has authorized a punishment does not mean that the jury has authorized any punishment. 874 UNITED STATES v. MERCADO If the jury does not substantively authorize the defendant’s sentence, it cannot ensure the people’s “control in the judiciary,” as required by the Sixth Amendment. Blakely, 542 U.S. at 306. Its role can be slowly whittled away by the same erosion that both the Framers and Blackstone7 warned against, see Jones, 526 U.S. at 247-48 (citing the fear of Blackstone and the Framers “that the jury right could be lost not only by gross denial, but by erosion”); Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 483 (same), reducing juries to the low-level gatekeeping function described in Jones, 526 U.S. at 246, and leaving defendants at the mercy of judge and prosecutor — the very same entities against whom the jury was supposed to protect the defendant.8 As the court explained in United States v. Pimental, 367 F. Supp. 2d 143 (D. Mass. 2005), “[i]t makes absolutely no sense to conclude that the Sixth Amendment is violated whenever facts essential to sentencing have been determined by a judge rather than a jury, and also conclude that the fruits of the jury’s efforts can be ignored with impunity by the judge in sentencing.” Id. at 150. See also United States v. Coleman, 370 F. Supp. 2d 661, 670 (S.D. Ohio 2005) (“Apprendi and 7 Blackstone identif[ied] trial by jury as “the grand bulwark” of English liberties . . . [and] contended that other liberties would remain secure only “so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, (which none will be so hardy as to make) but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it; by introducing new and arbitrary methods of trial, by justices of the peace, commissioners of the revenue, and courts of conscience. And however convenient these may appear at first, (as doubtless all arbitrary powers, well executed, are the most convenient), yet let it be again remembered, that delays, and little inconveniences in the forms of justice, are the price that all free nations must pay for their liberty in more substantial matters. Jones, 526 U.S. at 246 (quoting 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 342-44 (1769)). 8 This is not a complete list. Juries were also intended to protect defendants against the entire range of government figures. UNITED STATES v. MERCADO 875 its progeny, including Booker, have elevated the role of the jury verdict by circumscribing a defendant’s sentence to the relevant statutory maximum authorized by a jury; yet, the jury’s verdict is not heeded when it specifically withholds authorization. Stated differently, the jury is essentially ignored when it disagrees with the prosecution.”) Pimental states the point well. The fact that a jury has not authorized a particular punishment is never more clear than when the jury is asked for, yet specifically withholds, that authorization. In many ways, the consideration of acquitted conduct is a more direct repudiation of the jury verdict than is a sentence that exceeds the statutory maximum. In the case of acquitted conduct, the jury has been given the opportunity to authorize punishment and specifically withheld it. When a judge imposes a sentence above the statutory maximum, the jury has never specifically denied authority; it has simply never been asked. By allowing judges to consider conduct rejected by the jury, the court allows the jury’s role to be circumvented by the prosecutor and usurped by the judge — two of the primary entities against whom the jury is supposed to protect the defendant. See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 156 (1968) (“Providing an accused with the right to be tried by a jury of his peers gave him an inestimable safeguard against the corrupt or overzealous prosecutor and against the compliant, biased or eccentric judge.”). The jury simply can- not protect a defendant against the overzealous prosecutor or the compliant, biased, or eccentric judge, if those same indi- viduals have the authority to ignore the jury’s verdict. To reiterate, the consideration of acquitted conduct severs the connection between verdict and sentence. Blakely noted that “[t]he Framers would not have thought it too much to demand that, before depriving a man of [ten] more years of his liberty, the State should have to suffer the modest inconvenience of submitting its accusations to ‘the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbors,’ rather than a lone employee of the State.” 542 U.S. at 313-14. 876 UNITED STATES v. MERCADO Here, appellants have each been deprived of an additional seventeen years of their liberty — a sevenfold increase over their original Guideline calculated sentences. As in Blakely, I suspect the Framers would not have thought it too much to demand that the State suffer the modest inconvenience of proving appellants’ guilt to twelve of their equals and neighbors before increasing their sentences sevenfold. Nor is it too much to require the state to suffer the consequences of its failure to prove guilt. Apprendi made clear that “the relevant inquiry is one not of form, but of effect — does the required finding expose the defendant to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury’s guilty verdict?” Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 494. In this case, the government sought authorization to punish defendants for a number of crimes. The jury authorized punishment for two counts, but withheld authorization for each of the more serious offenses. As a result, the PSR recommended a sentence in the 30-37 month range. The district court added an additional 203-210 months solely on the basis of its finding that defendants had committed the conduct of which the jury acquitted them. Had the district court not rejected the jury’s finding, defendants would have received a dramatically reduced sentence — a fact disputed by nobody in this case. To hold that any sentence beneath the statutory maximum is acceptable is not enough: Apprendi requires examination “not of form, but of effect.” Id. And here the effect was to expose defendants to a dramatic increase in punishment based upon conduct for which the jury refused to authorize punishment in the only way it could — by acquitting defendants of the most serious conduct with which they were charged. Neither Jones, nor Apprendi, nor Ring, nor Blakely, nor Booker countenance this result. I would vacate defendants’ sentences on Sixth Amendment grounds and remand to the district court for re-sentencing.