Opinion ID: 842331
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: michigan's statutory sentencing scheme under blakely

Text: Under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the jury trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment, any fact that increases the maximum penalty for a crime must be submitted to a jury and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. [12] The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the states' criminal sentencing schemes conform to this rule. [13] The rule includes exceptions for the fact of prior convictions and any facts admitted by the defendant. [14] Accordingly, when sentencing a defendant, a judge may not exceed the maximum sentence authorized by the jury verdict or the guilty plea except on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict, the facts admitted by the defendant, and the defendant's record of prior convictions. In other words, the statutory maximum, for Blakely purposes, is the maximum sentence a judge may impose without any additional findings. Blakely, supra at 304, 124 S.Ct. 2531. In the wake of Blakely, state courts have been called upon to define the relevant statutory maximums within which judges may continue to exercise the traditional sentencing discretion legislatures afford them. The first question in this inquiry involves whether a state's sentencing scheme is determinate or indeterminate. As we have previously explained, under a determinate scheme, conviction for an offense typically exposes a defendant to a sentence of a fixed term lying in a standard range for that offense. [15] In Blakely, for instance, Washington's scheme prescribed a standard range of 49 to 53 months for the defendant's conviction of second-degree kidnapping with a firearm. [16] A judge was authorized to depart beyond the standard range on the basis of `substantial and compelling reasons justifying an exceptional sentence.' [17] The statute permitted the reasons for departure to be based on facts found by the sentencing judge. [18] In Blakely, the judge sentenced the defendant to an exceptional 90-month sentence on the basis of the judge's finding that the defendant perpetrated the kidnapping with deliberate cruelty. [19] Accordingly, the sentence violated the defendant's constitutional rights because it exceeded the fixed statutory maximum sentence range that was authorized solely by the facts that the defendant admitted when he pleaded guilty of second-degree kidnapping. [20] In contrast, under an indeterminate scheme, a defendant receives a minimum sentence and a maximum sentence. In Michigan, for instance, the law provides that the maximum portion of a defendant's indeterminate sentence must be the maximum penalty provided by law. . . . [21] As will be explained in detail later in this opinion, the sentencing judge ascertains the minimum portion of a defendant's indeterminate sentence by calculating the minimum sentence range under the statutory sentencing guidelines, which consider the circumstances of the crime as well as the defendant's criminal history. The judge may exceed the statutorily recommended minimum sentence range in a particular case if the judge finds a substantial and compelling reason to depart that the guidelines do not adequately take into account. [22] While the sentencing judge fixes the minimum portion of a defendant's indeterminate sentence, a defendant is still liable to serve his maximum sentence and may only be released before the maximum term has expired at the discretion of the parole board. [23] Thus, under an indeterminate sentencing scheme like Michigan's, judicial fact-finding does not present the same constitutional problems as judicial fact-finding used to exceed the statutory maximum under a determinate scheme, [24] because judicial fact-finding under our scheme never affects the statutory maximum sentence that was authorized by the jury verdict of guilty or the defendant's guilty plea. [25] As the Blakely Court observed in distinguishing the two types of schemes: [T]he Sixth Amendment by its terms is not a limitation on judicial power, but a reservation of jury power. It limits judicial power only to the extent that the claimed judicial power infringes on the province of the jury. Indeterminate sentencing does not do so. It increases judicial discretion, to be sure, but not at the expense of the jury's traditional function of finding the facts essential to lawful imposition of the penalty. Of course indeterminate schemes involve judicial factfinding, in that a judge (like a parole board) may implicitly rule on those facts he deems important to the exercise of his sentencing discretion. But the facts do not pertain to whether the defendant has a legal right to a lesser sentence  and that makes all the difference insofar as judicial impingement upon the traditional role of the jury is concerned. In a system that says the judge may punish burglary with 10 to 40 years, every burglar knows he is risking 40 years in jail. In a system that punishes burglary with a 10-year sentence, with another 30 added for use of a gun, the burglar who enters a home unarmed is entitled to no more than a 10-year sentence. . . . [ Blakely, supra at 308-309, 124 S.Ct. 2531.] Similarly, as we observed in People v. Drohan, 475 Mich. 140, 162, 715 N.W.2d 778 (2006), in Michigan, the trial court's power to impose a sentence is always derived from the jury's verdict, because the `maximum-minimum' sentence will always fall within the range authorized by the jury's verdict. For this reason, a defendant's constitutional rights are not violated when a sentencing judge exceeds the recommended minimum sentence range on the basis of a substantial and compelling reason, as the respective judges did in these cases; even an upward departure from the guidelines may not exceed the maximum penalty provided by law. Id. at 162 n. 15, 715 N.W.2d 778. Therefore, we reaffirm our holding in Drohan that Michigan's indeterminate sentencing scheme is valid under Blakely. Id. at 162-164, 715 N.W.2d 778.