Opinion ID: 1385884
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: as-applied sixth amenment challenges to sentences

Text: In Rita, the Supreme Court permitted the use of a non-binding, appellate presumption of reasonableness to within-Guidelines sentences, but the Court noted Rita's argument that according a presumption of reasonableness to a within-Guidelines sentence that depended upon substantial judicial fact-finding raises Sixth Amendment `concerns.' Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2465. In his concurring opinion, Justice Scalia elaborated upon those concerns, arguing that review for substantive reasonableness using even advisory Guidelines will inevitably [produce] some constitutional violations . . . because there will be some sentences that will be upheld as reasonable only because of the existence of judge-found facts. Id. at 2478 (Scalia, J., concurring). Justice Scalia offered two hypothetical cases to illustrate this argument, the second of which bears some resemblance to Marlowe's case. Justice Scalia referred to the common case in which the district court imposes a sentence within an advisory Guidelines range that has been substantially enhanced by certain judge-found facts. Id. at 2477 (Scalia, J., concurring). Justice Scalia observed that if a defendant with a criminal history of I were convicted of robbery, the Guidelines range would be 33 to 41 months. Id. (Scalia, J., concurring). If, however, the district court found that the defendant discharged a firearm, inflicted serious bodily injury upon a victim, and stole more than $5 million, the Guidelines range skyrockets to 235 to 293 months. Id. (Scalia, J., concurring). Justice Scalia then reasoned that [w]hen a judge finds all of those facts to be true and then imposes a within-Guidelines sentence of 293 months, those judge-found facts, or some combination of them, are not merely facts that the judge finds relevant in exercising his discretion; they are the legally essential predicate for his imposition of the 293-month sentence. His failure to find them would render the 293-month sentence unlawful. That is evident because, were the district judge explicitly to find none of those facts true and nevertheless to impose a 293-month sentence (simply because he thinks robbery merits seven times the sentence that the Guidelines provide) the sentence would surely be reversed as unreasonably excessive. Id. (Scalia, J., concurring). In response to Justice Scalia's arguments, the majority opinion in Rita stated that the Sixth Amendment concerns he foresees are not presented by this case. Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2466. Justice Scalia thus noted that the majority opinion does not rule out as-applied Sixth Amendment challenges to sentences that would not have been upheld as reasonable on the facts encompassed by the jury verdict or guilty plea. Id. at 2479 (Scalia, J., concurring) (citing Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2466-67; id. at 2473 (Stevens, J., concurring)). More recently, in Gall v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007), Justice Scalia again wrote a concurring opinion emphasizing that the Court has not foreclosed as-applied constitutional challenges to sentences and that [t]he door therefore remains open for a defendant to demonstrate that his sentence, whether inside or outside the advisory Guidelines range, would not have been upheld but for the existence of a fact found by the sentencing judge and not by the jury. Gall, 128 S.Ct. at 602-03 (Scalia, J., concurring).