Court Opinion

ID: 9816895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 03:41:15.136818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:35.094170
License: Public Domain

FISHER, Circuit Judge, with whom Judge BARRY
joins, concurring in part in the judgment.
I approve and join in Parts I, II, and III of the majority opinion. I concur only in the judgment as to Part IV. I would base our holding that the imposition of restitution did not violate the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial solely on the conclusion that restitution is not the type of criminal penalty to which the right to a jury trial attaches. As the majority opinion correctly notes, “orders of restitution have little in common with the prison sentences challenged by the defendants in Jones, Apprendi Blakely and Booker.” The issue of restitution was not before the United States Supreme Court in any of those decisions, and the Supreme Court gave no indication in those decisions that the right to a jury trial applies to any form of criminal penalty other than imprisonment. Accordingly, I would not reach— and do not join — the majority’s conclusion that restitution orders do not constitute an increase in punishment beyond the “statutory maximum” for the offense.