Opinion ID: 845996
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: blakely and michigan's general sentencing scheme

Text: As noted before, Michigan's sentencing guidelines generally establish the minimum sentence. Usually, judicial fact-finding does not alter a defendant's maximum sentence. Instead, in the typical case, the maximum sentence for Blakely purposes is the sentence set by the statute. The defendant's criminal history, admitted facts, and the jury's verdict alone allow the sentencing court to sentence the defendant to the maximum sentence allowed by law, without recourse to judicial fact-finding. And the defendant's Sixth Amendment rights are not implicated because all the facts necessary to support the maximum sentence have been proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Such situations do not threaten the basic principles undergirding our jury-driven legal system. This is because the defendant knows what maximum sentence he or she is facing regardless of judicial fact-finding. Apprendi noted that judicial fact-finding is acceptable when it does not increase the maximum penalty for a crime or create a separate offense calling for a separate penalty. `[Judicial fact-finding] operates solely to limit the sentencing court's discretion in selecting a penalty within the range already available to it without the special finding[s] .... ' Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 486, 120 S.Ct. 2348 quoting McMillan, 477 U.S. at 88, 106 S.Ct. 2411. The typical application of the Michigan sentencing guidelines more readily relates to McMillan. Scoring the OVs merely shifts a defendant's sentence within the maximum range. It does not move the defendant from one maximum sentence to a higher one. A defendant whose criminal history and jury verdict do not place him or her in an intermediate sanction cell always knows what the potential maximum sentence will be: it is the maximum penalty prescribed by law. Because there is no notice problem in the application of the sentencing guidelines in cases not involving intermediate sanction cells, there is no Sixth Amendment issue either. All of this changes, however, when an intermediate sanction cell is involved.