Opinion ID: 2198226
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Increased Penalty

Text: Even assuming, arguendo, that sexual offender registration constituted punishment for the purposes of our Apprendi analysis, the requisite statutory predicate that Jessica was under eighteen years of age at the time of petitioner's crime is not a fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum. Apprendi 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. at 2362-63, 147 L.Ed.2d 435. Apprendi applies only to facts that increase the maximum sentence to which a defendant is exposed. See Harris v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 122 S.Ct. 2406, 153 L.Ed.2d 524 (2002) (holding, in the context of the federal sentencing factor of brandishing a pistol, that facts that increased the mandatory minimum sentence without extending the sentence beyond the statutory maximum did not have to be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt pursuant to Apprendi). Maryland Code (1957, 1996 Repl.Vol., 2000 Supp.) Article 27,  432 authorizes a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment. In sentencing petitioner, the trial court sentenced petitioner to ten years, but suspended two years of the sentence and ordered that he register as a sex offender as a condition of probation. Apprendi does not apply to a case in which the trial court imposes a discretionary sentence within the permissible statutory range. Behrman also supports this second holding. In that case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found that the federal statute allowing for the restitution order did not include a `statutory maximum' that could be `increased' by a given finding. Behrman, 235 F.3d at 1054. As the Court of Appeals explained: A civil remedy included with a criminal judgment does not make it a `penalty for a crime' that must be established beyond a reasonable doubt.... Put otherwise, Apprendi does not affect the operation of the Sentencing Guidelines; it is limited to situations in which findings affect statutory maximum punishment. Id. Contrary to petitioner's argument, the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in United States v. Promise, 255 F.3d 150 (4th Cir.2001) is inapposite to the present case. In Promise, the court concluded that Apprendi required that a jury must find possession of the specific threshold drug quantity beyond a reasonable doubt in order for a defendant to be sentenced for an aggravated drug trafficking offense because the drug quantity finding subjected the defendant to a sentence exceeding the maximum otherwise allowable. Id. at 152. As the court explained: [T]he maximum penalty that may be imposed upon a defendant is the maximum penalty allowed by statute upon proof of only those facts alleged in the indictment and found by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Once this maximum penalty is established, a fact (sentencing factor) that may increase the actual sentence imposed within that maximum is not subject to the same requirements. Id. at 156 n. 5. See United States v. Fields, 242 F.3d 393, 395 (D.C.Cir.2001); United States v. Nance, 236 F.3d 820, 824-25 (7th Cir.2000); United States v. Hishaw, 235 F.3d 565, 574-75 (10th Cir.2000); United States v. Doggett, 230 F.3d 160, 164-65 (5th Cir.2000); United States v. Rogers, 228 F.3d 1318, 1327 (11th Cir.2000); United States v. Rebmann, 226 F.3d 521, 524-25 (6th Cir.2000); United States v. Nordby, 225 F.3d 1053, 1058-59 (9th Cir.2000). [12] The finding of the statutory predicates for sex offender registration is much more akin to the finding, in Behrman, of the statutory predicates for restitution than to the finding of a specific drug threshold quantity in Promise because the statutory sentence given to the defendant in Promise after the court found the requisite drug quantity (thirty years) was greater than the maximum that otherwise would have been available absent that finding (twenty years). That is simply not the case here. [13]