Opinion ID: 2496321
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Apprendi and Blakely and Retroactivity to Final Cases

Text: In its decisions in Apprendi and Blakely, the United States Supreme Court altered the rules of procedure regarding fact-finding in criminal sentencing based on the Court's interpretation of the requirements of the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As part of a plea agreement, Apprendi pleaded guilty to, among others, a second-degree firearms offense for which the statutory maximum sentence was ten years. Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 468, 120 S.Ct. 2348. Under the state's hate crime statute, however, the trial court could impose a sentence of up to twenty years for the crime upon making an additional finding by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. at 468-69, 120 S.Ct. 2348. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court found that Apprendi's crime was motivated by racial bias and imposed an enhanced sentence of twelve years. Id. at 469-71, 120 S.Ct. 2348. The question before the Supreme Court was whether Apprendi had a constitutional right to have a jury find [the sentencing factor of] bias on the basis of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 475-76, 120 S.Ct. 2348. After reviewing the history of criminal sentencing, the Supreme Court stated that nothing in this history suggests that it is impermissible for judges to exercise discretiontaking into consideration various factors relating both to offense and offenderin imposing a judgment within the range prescribed by statute and that judges in this country have long exercised discretion of this nature in imposing sentence within statutory limits in the individual case. Id. at 481, 120 S.Ct. 2348. In contrast, the New Jersey sentencing scheme provided the trial court with the power to find additional facts and impose a sentence beyond the prescribed penalty for that crime. Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that [o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348. In light of the holding in Apprendi, Florida courts determined that trial courts were still empowered to find additional facts in imposing lengthier sentences, but they were limited by the maximum punishment provided by the statute for the specific crime. See Hall v. State, 823 So.2d 757, 764 (Fla.2002) (Because the sentence for each of Hall's offenses did not exceed the statutory maximum, we conclude that Apprendi is inapplicable.); Isaac v. State, 826 So.2d 396 (Fla. 1st DCA 2002) (The rule of [ Apprendi ] . . . does not apply when the sentence does not exceed the statutory maximum permitted by section 775.082, Florida Statutes.). Four years after Apprendi, the Supreme Court in Blakely addressed the application of the principles of Apprendi to guidelines sentencing schemes. In Blakely, the defendant entered a guilty plea, admitting the elements of second-degree kidnaping and the domestic-violence and firearm allegations, but no other relevant facts. Blakely, 542 U.S. at 299, 124 S.Ct. 2531. Under a Washington statute, the kidnapping charge was a second-degree felony punishable by a term not exceeding ten years, but another statute provided a standard range sentence for second-degree kidnapping with a firearm of forty-nine to fifty-three months. Id. A judge, however, could impose a departure sentence exceeding the standard range up to the statutory maximum for the crime based on one or more aggravating factors. Upon finding that Blakely committed the crime with deliberate cruelty, the trial court imposed a sentence of ninety months, which exceeded the standard range by more than three years. Id. at 300, 124 S.Ct. 2531. The Supreme Court rejected the state's argument that Blakely's sentence fell within the statutory maximum of ten years, determining that the sentence could not have [been] imposed. . . solely on the basis of the facts admitted in the guilty plea. Id. at 304, 124 S.Ct. 2531. Accordingly, the Supreme Court held as follows: Our precedents make clear, however, that the statutory maximum for Apprendi purposes is the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant. In other words, the relevant statutory maximum is not the maximum sentence a judge may impose after finding additional facts, but the maximum he may impose without any additional findings. When a judge inflicts punishment that the jury's verdict alone does not allow, the jury has not found all the facts which the law makes essential to the punishment, and the judge exceeds his proper authority. Id. at 303-04, 124 S.Ct. 2531 (citations omitted). When the Supreme Court announces a new rule for the conduct of criminal prosecutions, the rule must be applied to all cases, state or federal, pending on direct review or not yet final. Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 328, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987). Similarly, when this Court announce[es] a new rule of law, or merely appl[ies] an established rule of law to a new or different factual situation, the decision applies in every [Florida] case pending on direct review or not yet final. Smith v. State, 598 So.2d 1063, 1066 (Fla.1992); see Wuornos v. State, 644 So.2d 1000, 1007 n. 4 (Fla. 1994) (We read Smith to mean that new points of law established by this Court shall be deemed retrospective with respect to all non-final cases unless this Court says otherwise.). To determine whether a new rule applies retroactively to final cases in postconviction proceedings, however, courts in Florida conduct a retroactivity analysis under Witt v. State, 387 So.2d 922 (Fla.1980). In Hughes v. State, 901 So.2d 837, 838 (Fla.2005), we analyzed Apprendi under the Witt factors and concluded that the new Apprendi rule of procedure did not apply retroactively to cases that were final when it issued. At the same time, we determined in Johnson v. State, 904 So.2d 400, 405 (Fla.2005), that the Supreme Court's decision in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), which applied the reasoning of Apprendi to death penalty cases, also did not apply retroactively to death-sentenced defendants whose convictions already were final when that decision was rendered. [4] We have not directly addressed Blakely's retroactive application to final cases. See Galindez, 955 So.2d at 524 (Cantero, J., specially concurring) (We already have held that Apprendi does not apply retroactively. Presumably, neither does its offspring, Blakely.  (citation omitted)). Florida's district courts of appeal, however, have concluded that Blakely, like Apprendi, does not apply retroactively to cases that were final before it issued. See, e.g., Thompson v. State, 949 So.2d 1169, 1173 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007) (Florida courts, including this one, have generally agreed that Blakely has no application to cases that were already final when Blakely was handed down.), quashed on other grounds, 990 So.2d 482, 482 (Fla.2008); Thomas v. State, 914 So.2d 27, 28 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005) (concluding on the basis of Hughes that Blakely does not apply retroactively).