Court decision throws wrench in criminal sentencing

Grant County prosecutor may ask Supreme Court to reconsider

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the sentencing in a

Grant County case has hung a question mark over how criminal defendants

will be sentenced in the future.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a judge does not have the

right to impose a sentence greater than the statutory maximum.

The court's decision left legal experts scratching their heads across the

country because in many states, including Washington, judges will impose

a sentence outside standard range if they feel extraordinary factors of

the case make it necessary.

"They (the Supreme Court judges) just threw a bomb and blew everything up, and now we have to decide how to put it back together," Harvard Law School criminal law professor William J. Stuntz told the Associated Press after the decision was handed out last week. "Humpty Dumpty isn't sitting on the wall anymore."

Grant County Prosecutor John Knodell, who argued the case before the

Supreme Court judges, said sentencing reform goes back about 40 years and

balances the need for uniformity with the needs of individual cases. But

this decision, Knodell said, runs contrary to that philosophy.

"The Supreme Court, in my view, has completely misunderstood how that

works," he said, adding, "I think they're completing missing the boat."

Knodell added that he is considering asking the court to reconsider the

case, which would be the last hope in reversing the decision. Knodell

said his last hope is that the large amount of media attention generated

by the case may sway one of the members of the majority to the other

side.

The case stems from a 1998 incident when a Montana rancher, Ralph Howard Blakely, kidnapped his ex-wife, Yolanda Blakely, in Grant County, tied

her up and transported her back to Montana in a home-made coffin at

gunpoint.

Grant County Superior Court Judge Evan Sperline sentenced Blakely to 90

months in prison after he pleaded down to second-degree kidnapping, which normally constitutes a sentence of 49 months to 53 months. Sperline cited Blakely's forcing of Yolanda Blakely into a coffin as his reason to go

above the standard range.

Earlier this month, Knodell filed charges against Blakely for allegedly

trying to hire someone to kill both Yolanda Blakely and his daughter,

Lorene Blakely, who had alerted police of the kidnapping, from his jail

cell at Airway Heights Corrections Center outside Spokane.

Blakely will complete his sentence for the kidnapping at the end of this

month, then be held on $50,000 bail for conspiracy to commit murder.

In delivering the majority opinion of the court, Supreme Court Justice

Antonin Scalia wrote that the framers of the Constitution intended all

criminal defendants have the right to demand prosecutors prove all facts

of a case before a jury.

"The Framers would not have thought it too much to demand that, before

depriving a man (Blakely) of three more years of his liberty, the State

should suffer the modest inconvenience of submitting its accusation to

'the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbours (4

Blackstone, Commentaries, at 343), rather than a lone employee of the

State," Scalia wrote.

Barry C. Scheck, president of the National Association of Criminal

Defense Lawyers, supported the Supreme Court decision in a press

statement.

Scheck said the court's decision is a "logical" application of the

principle that juries should rule on facts that are used to determine

whether a defendant's sentence should extend outside the statutory norm

"The decision does not represent a step backward from the goal of

sentencing reform, but a great leap forward, because it stands for the

proposition that no defendant in a U.S. court will be punished for an

unproven crime," Scheck said.

In the dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that the

court's opinion impacts not only Washington's scheme but federal

sentencing guidelines, which call for increases in sentences based on the

presence of firearms, as well.

"What I have feared most has now come to pass: Over 20 years of

sentencing reform are all but lost, and tens of thousands of criminal

judgments are now in jeopardy," O'Connor wrote.

Knodell said O'Connor's dissent showed she recognized all the state's

legal arguments, which were prepared by Grant County Deputy Prosecutor

Theresa Chen.

As attorneys and judge across the country continue to digest this

decision, Knodell said its weight may not yet be realized.

"No one knows how big this is," he said.