Court Opinion

ID: 9694458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:42:14.035109+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:09:30.855007
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
with whom RUDMAN, and ALEXANDER, JJ., join, dissenting.
[¶ 12] I respectfully dissent. As articulated in the dissent in State v. Schofield, 2005 ME 82, ¶ 48, 2005 WL 1529678, (Clifford, J., dissenting), the discretionary determinations that our sentencing judges undertake pursuant to 17-A M.R.S.A. § 1252(2)(A) (Supp.2001) in considering whether to impose a sentence in excess of twenty years are not the kind of discrete factual determinations that Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000); Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004); and United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), require be made by a jury.
[¶ 13] Section 1252(2)(A) calls for the court to consider a defendant’s serious criminal history, as veil as the nature and seriousness of the crime, in imposing a sentence in excess of twenty years. 17-A M.R.S.A. § 1252(2)(A). In my view, neither of these subject matters need be, nor should be, considered by a jury.
[¶ 14] Pursuant to our existing law, discrete prior criminal convictions that lead to a higher classification of crime, or that can lead to longer sentences, have to be pleaded and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., 17-A M.R.S.A. §§ 9-A, 1252(4), (4-A), (4-B), (4-C), (4-D), (5), (5-A), 1256 (1983 & Supp.2004); M.R.Crim. P. 3(a); see also 29-A M.R.S.A. § 2411 (1996 & Supp.2004). A jury can readily find as an objective fact that a defendant has or has *523not been convicted of such crimes. Although no such convictions were alleged by the State against Averill, section 1252(2)(A) does contemplate a subjective review of a defendant’s previous general criminal history. The seriousness of that criminal history is not an undertaking that a jury is required to review.4 Rather, such an evaluative assessment can be properly carried out only by a sentencing judge.
[¶ 15] We should make this same kind of distinction between the subjective assessment undertaken pursuant to section 1252(2)(A), i.e. whether Averill’s crime is among the most heinous and violent crimes that can be committed against a person, and the discrete findings of objective facts that are more appropriate for a jury to make. In Apprendi and Blakely, the facts that the sentencing courts found after trial and on which they relied in increasing the sentences “could easily have been charged as elements of the offense because they were objective findings and thus readily amenable to disposition at trial.” State v. Lett, 2005 Ohio 2665, ¶ 21, 161 Ohio App.3d 274 (2005). Pursuant to existing Maine law, such objective facts incident to a crime that may enhance the penalty for that crime, similar to those at issue in Apprendi and Blakely, must be pleaded and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. See State v. Briggs, 2003 ME 137, ¶ 5, 837 A.2d 113, 116; State v. Hodgkins, 2003 ME 57, ¶¶ 9-11, 822 A.2d 1187, 1191-93; State v. Burdick, 2001 ME 143, ¶ 20, 782 A.2d 319, 325-26; State v. Wheeler, 252 A.2d 455 (Me.1969); State v. Ferris, 249 A.2d 523 (Me.1969). The analysis of the nature and seriousness of Averill’s crime required by section 1252(2)(A) is much different, however, because it involves a comparison of the way that a defendant has committed a crime with other ways that the crime could have been committed. Such a subjective determination has been, and should continue to be, for a judge to make.
[¶ 16] As I concluded in the dissent in Schofield, 2005 ME 82, ¶ 52, 2005 WL 1529678 section 1252(2)(A) does not implicate the Sixth Amendment, and I would not remand for resentencing. Rather, I would address the propriety of Averill’s sentence.
ORDER OF RECONSIDERATION
PER CURIAM.
The State’s Motion for Reconsideration is granted insofar as it requests reconsideration of the language in State v. Schofield, 2005 ME 82, ¶ 10, 2005 WL 1529678. All other portions of the State’s Motion for Reconsideration were previously denied by Order dated August 16, 2005.
Upon reconsideration, the Court amends paragraph 40 of the Schofield opinion to read as follows:
[¶40] On remand, Schofield may be sentenced constitutionally within the zero- to twenty-year range without the need for further fact-finding regarding heinousness. If the State recommends a sentence in the upper range, or if the court is inclined to impose such a sentence even in the absence of a recommendation, Schofield must be provided with the opportunity for a sentencing trial before the fact-finder of her choice (i.e., judge or jury). If she selects a jury, at the beginning of the proceeding, the trial judge should instruct the jury as follows:
*524You are being asked to make a decision today that will assist me in sentencing Ms. Schofield who has been convicted of the Class A offense of manslaughter.
In imposing sentences, judges are required to look at a number of circumstances concerning the defendant, the victim, and the commission of the crime. One of the circumstances that a jury is required to determine is whether the offense committed by the defendant is among the most heinous crimes committed against a person.
The parties will provide information and testimony from which you can evaluate the offense committed by Ms. Schofield and determine whether it is among the most heinous committed against a person.

. As the Court notes in ¶ 11, the Supreme Court has excluded the fact of a prior conviction from the Sixth Amendment requirement of a jury trial. See Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000); see also Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 301, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 2536, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004).