Opinion ID: 1057758
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jones, Apprendi, and Blakely

Text: We begin our analysis with a brief review of Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 119 S.Ct. 1215, 143 L.Ed.2d 311 (1999), the case that presaged Apprendi . Jones addressed whether the federal carjacking statute defined three distinct offenses or a single crime with a choice of three maximum penalties, two of them dependent on sentencing factors exempt from the requirements of charge and jury verdict. Id. at 229, 119 S.Ct. 1215. The defendant had been charged with carjacking, a crime punishable by up to fifteen years imprisonment, unless serious bodily injury or death resulted, in which case the maximum punishments were twenty-five years and life imprisonment, respectively. Neither the charging instrument nor the charge to the jury made any mention of the factors necessary for a sentence of more than fifteen years. The jury convicted the defendant of carjacking. At sentencing, the presentence report recommended a twenty-five-year sentence because one of the victims had suffered serious bodily injury. The defendant objected on the grounds that serious bodily injury was an element of the offense and therefore had to be both alleged in the indictment and proved beyond a reasonable doubt to the jury. The prosecution took the position that serious bodily injury was simply a sentencing factor. The Court characterized the issue as whether the fact of the victim's bodily injury was an element of [the] offense rather than a sentencing consideration, given that elements must be charged in the indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven by the Government beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 232, 119 S.Ct. 1215. The Court agreed with the defendant, stating under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the notice and jury trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment, any fact (other than prior conviction) that increases the maximum penalty for a crime must be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 243 n.6, 119 S.Ct. 1215. The court continued: The constitutional safeguards that figure in our analysis concern not the identity of the elements defining criminal liability but only the required procedures for finding the facts that determine the maximum permissible punishment; these are the safeguards going to the formality of notice, the identity of the factfinder, and the burden of proof. Id. Jones thus stands for the proposition that a jurisdiction may not disguise an element of a particular crime as a post-verdict sentencing factor. Apprendi followed. In that case, the defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree and one count of third-degree unlawful weapons possession. The statutory maximum sentences for these crimes was ten years for the second-degree offenses and five years for the third-degree offense. The prosecution reserved the right to request an enhanced sentence for one of the second-degree offenses on the basis that it had been committed with a biased purpose. At sentencing, the trial court imposed a twelve-year sentence for this second-degree offense after finding by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant had committed the crime with a purpose to intimidate, triggering the hate crime sentencing enhancement statute. The Supreme Court framed the issue as whether Apprendi had a constitutional right to have a jury find such bias on the basis of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. 530 U.S. at 475-76, 120 S.Ct. 2348. The Court found that he did, holding 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. Significantly as to the issue before us, the Apprendi Court specifically rejected as irrelevant the fact that the defendant could have received the identical actual term of imprisonment had the trial court imposed consecutive sentences on two of the counts. The Court stated: The constitutional question, however, is whether the 12-year sentence imposed on count 18 was permissible, given that it was above the 10-year maximum for the offense charged in that count. ... The sentences on counts 3 and 22 have no ... relevance to our disposition.... Id. at 474, 120 S.Ct. 2348. Thus, the Court's focus was on the particular sentence that could be imposed for a particular crime: not the accumulation of sentences imposed for multiple crimes. As noted by the Supreme Court of Maine, it appears that the Supreme Court did not intend its holding in Apprendi to be extended outside the narrow issue before it: whether a court has impermissibly exceeded the statutory maximum sentence for a particular crime based on factual determinations not submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Keene, 927 A.2d 398, 406(Me.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 490, 169 L.Ed.2d 345 (2007). A few years later, the Supreme Court decided Blakely . In that case, the defendant was convicted of a felony under Washington law for which he was subject to a sentence of forty-nine to fifty-three months. The trial court had authority to impose a longer sentence if it found `substantial and compelling reasons justifying an exceptional sentence.' 542 U.S. at 299, 124 S.Ct. 2531 (quoting Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 9.94A.120(2) (West 2000)). The trial court increased the defendant's sentence to ninety months after finding that the defendant had committed the offense with deliberate cruelty. Applying the rule of Apprendi , the Supreme Court held unconstitutional the defendant's exceptional sentence. Id. at 305, 124 S.Ct. 2531. The Court emphasized 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). Like Apprendi , the Blakely decision focused on the constitutionality of the procedure for imposing a particular sentence for a particular crime, not on the aggregate term of imprisonment faced by a defendant convicted of multiple crimes. And, because the Supreme Court did not address the issue of consecutive sentences in Blakely ... [ Blakely ] did nothing to expand the rule of Apprendi , which addressed only sentences for individual crimes. Keene, 927 A.2d at 406. Both Apprendi and Blakely treated the additional mens rea sentencing factor found by the trial court after conviction as the functional equivalent of an element that transformed the charged offense into a greater crime  thereby requiring that all of its elements be put to the jury. See People v. Black, 41 Cal.4th 799, 62 Cal. Rptr.3d 569, 161 P.3d 1130, 1144 (2007), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 1063, 169 L.Ed.2d 813 (Jan. 14, 2008). Thus, the common thread running through Jones , Apprendi , and Blakely is a concern with a jurisdiction effectively turning a lesser crime into a greater crime not by adding an element that must be charged and put to the jury, but by allowing a judge to find sentencing factors after conviction of the lesser crime. See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 485, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (recognizing that it had earlier dismissed the possibility that a State could [avoid the due process requirement that it prove every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt] merely by `redefin[ing] the elements that constitute different crimes, characterizing them as factors that bear solely on the extent of punishment') (quoting Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 698, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975)). That is, Jones , Apprendi , and Blakely all focus on the constitutional procedural safeguards that must be in place in order to impose punishment for a defendant's conduct in committing any particular crime. It is not constitutionally permissible to charge, try, and convict a defendant for aggravated assault, for instance, and then punish the defendant as if he committed murder on the basis of a post-verdict finding by the trial court that the defendant's victim died during, and as a result of, the assault. See State v. Ice, 343 Or. 248, 170 P.3d 1049, 1062 (2007) (concluding that [t]he rule in Apprendi provides a means for determining whether ... `sentencing factors' are elements of the offense that the state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt) (Kistler, J., dissenting).