Opinion ID: 852808
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Blakely Violation and Sentencing Remedy

Text: Williams' enhanced sentences were based on aggravating factors that were neither prior convictions, nor reflected in the jury's verdict, nor admitted by Williams. The enhancements thus violated Williams' right to a jury trial under the Sixth Amendment. Blakely, 542 U.S. at ___, 124 S.Ct. at 2536-37, 2541. In light of this violation, we perceive two possible remedies available as an appellate disposition. We could remand with instructions to impose the presumptive terms of ten years for aggravated battery and one and a half years for criminal confinement, unless the State elects to prove aggravating circumstances before a jury. The State would probably reap minimal return on investment by choosing to do so as compared, say, to seeking standard sentences served consecutively, which the court could properly order with the aggravators it previously found. Smylie, 823 N.E.2d at 686. Or we could alter the sentences ourselves within the bounds of Blakely using our review and revise power. This authority flows from Article 7 Section 4 of the Indiana Constitution, [1] which was among the 1970 amendments. See Cooper v. State, 540 N.E.2d 1216, 1218 (1989). As we observed in Cooper, the Judicial Study Commission issued a report describing its proposed constitutional reforms and explaining that the commission supported review and revise power for Indiana's appellate courts after studying the efficacious use of the power in the Court of Criminal Appeals in England. Id. (citing Report of the Judicial Study Commission 140 (1967)). The commission relied on an English statute granting the power to review and revise, which stated: On appeal against sentence the Court of Criminal Appeal shall, if they think that a different sentence should have been passed, quash the sentence passed at the trial, and pass such other sentence warranted in law by the verdict (whether more or less severe) in substitution therefor as they think ought to have been passed, and in any other case shall dismiss the appeal. Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, 7 Edw. 7, ch. 23, § 4(3). The current articulation of the standard under which we exercise this power is: The Court may revise a sentence authorized by statute if, after due consideration of the trial court's decision, the Court finds that the sentence is inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the character of the offender. Ind. Appellate Rule 7(B) (adopted February 4, 2000). We conclude that the trial judge was warranted in finding that the brutality of the beatingsone victim spent some twenty-two days in a coma and suffered severe brain damagewas an aggravating circumstance. (Tr. at 168-74, 415.) It adequately supports ordering consecutive sentences. Smylie, 823 N.E.2d at 686 (aggravators requiring jury finding to support enhancement may be found by court for purposes of consecutive sentences).