Opinion ID: 1697435
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Booker Remedy

Text: The state urges us to follow the lead of the Supreme Court in Booker and modify the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines to make them advisory. In Booker, the Court answered the question of remedy by finding the provision of the federal Sentencing Act that made the Federal Sentencing Guidelines mandatory to be incompatible with its constitutional holding that the federal guidelines are subject to Sixth Amendment jury-trial requirements, and severed that and another statutory provision relating to standards of review. 125 S.Ct. at 756-57, 764. The Court then required federal courts to consider guidelines ranges in imposing sentence, id. at 757, 767, and adopted a standard of unreasonableness for reviewing sentences, id. at 765. The Court based its holding on the determination that Congress would have preferred total invalidation of the Sentencing Act to engrafting a jury-trial requirement onto it, and would have preferred the Court's remedy to total invalidation. Id. at 758-59. The state asserts that the Booker holding is applicable to the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines and legislative intent. The state proposes that two provisions of the Sentencing Guidelines be severed: the requirement of section II.D that the sentencing judge shall utilize the presumptive sentence, and section I.4 in its entirety (While the sentencing guidelines are advisory to the sentencing judge, departures from the presumptive sentences established in the guidelines should be made only when substantial and compelling circumstances exist.). We decline to modify the guidelines as the state requests. Because Booker was decided on purely federal law grounds, it does not mandate a similar result here. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines system is a complex one that differs significantly from Minnesota's. More important, the Court's approach to severability in Booker is far different than the traditional, deferential approach taken under Minnesota law. See Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 777 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (describing majority's severability approach as entirely new law). To accept the state's invitation would effectively return felony sentencing in Minnesota to an indeterminate sentencing system. It would also require us to invalidate two provisions of the Sentencing Guidelines that suffer from no constitutional infirmity. It is not our role to choose among various provisions of the Sentencing Guidelines and select a sentencing system for this state. [16]