Supreme Court Throws Out Judge-Determined Aggravated Sentence
Defendants got one win today from the Supreme Court, and it's a pretty big one. Many states around the country have sentencing schemes which call for a certain sentence or range of sentence for an offense unless the judge determines that there are aggravating factors--in which case a greater sentence can be imposed. The Supreme Court today ruled that for the Judge to decide on the aggravating factor, rather than a jury, violates a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights under its Apprendi decision (the same Apprendi it decided today did not apply retroactively in death cases.)
Here's the syllabus of Blakely v. Washington (html). The text of the opinion (html) is here. It was written by Justice Scalia. The basic facts at issue:
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