Legal Notes
Much Ado About Sentencing: The Influence
of Apprendi, Blakely, and Booker in the U.S. Courts of Appeals
Mark
S. Hurwitz
In a line of cases
commencing with Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000), the Supreme Court has held
the Constitution commands that juries must decide factual issues that lead to
sentencing determinations by judges. When
the Apprendi logic was extended to Blakely v. Washington (2004)
regarding state sentencing guidelines, the mandatory sentencing scheme in the
federal Sentencing Guidelines seemed threatened.
Indeed, the Supreme Court continued this line of thinking in United
States v. Booker (2005), when it held the mandatory nature of the federal
Sentencing Guidelines unconstitutional. I
analyze the influence of these Supreme Court decisions by showing how the courts
of appeals handled these new directives in sentencing, particularly during the
short time between Blakely and Booker
when the state of the law in federal courts was in flux.
My purpose is to decipher how the federal courts handled this area of the
law while it remained open and subject to dissimilar interpretations.
Accordingly, I traverse the federal courts’ rationale for sentencing
from Apprendi to Booker,
concentrating in detail on the short time frame between Blakely and Booker.
|
