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Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before
publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports.
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court
of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or
other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the
preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 02—1632
RALPH HOWARD BLAKELY, Jr., PETITIONER
v.
WASHINGTON
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF
APPEALS OF WASHINGTON, DIVISION 3
[June 24, 2004]
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion
of the Court.
Petitioner Ralph Howard Blakely,
Jr., pleaded guilty to the kidnaping of his estranged wife. The facts
admitted in his plea, standing alone, supported a maximum sentence of 53
months. Pursuant to state law, the court imposed an “exceptional” sentence
of 90 months after making a judicial determination that he had acted with
“deliberate cruelty.” App. 40, 49. We consider whether this violated
petitioner’s
Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury.
I
Petitioner married his wife
Yolanda in 1973. He was evidently a difficult man to live with, having
been diagnosed at various times with psychological and personality
disorders including paranoid schizophrenia. His wife ultimately filed for
divorce. In 1998, he abducted her from their orchard home in Grant County,
Washington, binding her with duct tape and forcing her at knifepoint into
a wooden box in the bed of his pickup truck. In the process, he implored
her to dismiss the divorce suit and related trust proceedings.
When the couple’s 13-year-old son
Ralphy returned home from school, petitioner ordered him to follow in
another car, threatening to harm Yolanda with a shotgun if he did not do
so. Ralphy escaped and sought help when they stopped at a gas station, but
petitioner continued on with Yolanda to a friend’s house in Montana. He
was finally arrested after the friend called the police.
The State charged petitioner with
first-degree kidnaping, Wash. Rev. Code Ann. §9A.40.020(1) (2000).1
Upon reaching a plea agreement, however, it reduced the charge to
second-degree kidnaping involving domestic violence and use of a firearm,
see §§9A.40.030(1), 10.99.020(3)(p), 9.94A.125.2
Petitioner entered a guilty plea admitting the elements of second-degree
kidnaping and the domestic-violence and firearm allegations, but no other
relevant facts.
The case then proceeded to
sentencing. In Washing-
ton, second-degree kidnaping is a class B felony. §9A.40.030(3). State law
provides that “[n]o person convicted of a [class B] felony shall be
punished by confinement … exceeding … a term of ten years.”
§9A.20.021(1)(b). Other provisions of state law, however, further limit
the range of sentences a judge may impose. Washington’s Sentencing Reform
Act specifies, for petitioner’s offense of second-degree kidnaping with a
firearm, a “standard range” of 49 to 53 months. See §9.94A.320
(seriousness level V for second-degree kidnaping); App. 27 (offender score
2 based on §9.94A.360); §9.94A.310(1), box 2—V (standard range of 13—17
months); §9.94A.310(3)(b) (36-month firearm enhancement).3
A judge may impose a sentence above the standard range if he finds
“substantial and compelling reasons justifying an exceptional sentence.”
§9.94A.120(2). The Act lists aggravating factors that justify such a
departure, which it recites to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.
§9.94A.390. Nevertheless, “[a] reason offered to justify an exceptional
sentence can be considered only if it takes into account factors other
than those which are used in computing the standard range sentence for the
offense.” State v. Gore, 143 Wash. 2d 288, 315—316, 21 P.3d
262, 277 (2001). When a judge imposes an exceptional sentence, he must set
forth findings of fact and conclusions of law supporting it.
§9.94A.120(3). A reviewing court will reverse the sentence if it finds
that “under a clearly erroneous standard there is insufficient evidence in
the record to support the reasons for imposing an exceptional sentence.”
Gore, supra, at 315, 21 P.3d, at 277 (citing §9.94A.210(4)).
Pursuant to the plea agreement,
the State recommended a sentence within the standard range of 49 to 53
months. After hearing Yolanda’s description of the kidnap-
ing, however, the judge rejected the State’s recom-
mendation and imposed an exceptional sentence of 90 months–37 months
beyond the standard maximum.
He justified the sentence on the ground that petitioner had acted with
“deliberate cruelty,” a statutorily enumerated ground for departure in
domestic-violence cases. §9.94A.390(2)(h)(iii).4
Faced with an unexpected increase
of more than three years in his sentence, petitioner objected. The judge
accordingly conducted a 3-day bench hearing featuring testimony from
petitioner, Yolanda, Ralphy, a police officer, and medical experts. After
the hearing, he issued 32 findings of fact, concluding:
“The defendant’s motivation to
commit kidnapping was complex, contributed to by his mental condition and
personality disorders, the pressures of the divorce litigation, the
impending trust litigation trial and anger over his troubled interpersonal
relationships with his spouse and children. While he misguidedly intended
to forcefully reunite his family, his attempt to do so was subservient to
his desire to terminate lawsuits and modify title ownerships to his
benefit.
“The defendant’s methods were more
homogeneous than his motive. He used stealth and surprise, and took
advantage of the victim’s isolation. He immediately employed physical
violence, restrained the victim with tape, and threatened her with injury
and death to herself and others. He immediately coerced the victim into
providing information by the threatening application of a knife. He
violated a subsisting restraining order.” App. 48—49.
The judge adhered to his initial
determination of deliberate cruelty.
Petitioner appealed, arguing that
this sentencing procedure deprived him of his federal constitutional right
to have a jury determine beyond a reasonable doubt all facts legally
essential to his sentence. The State Court of Appeals affirmed, 111 Wash.
App. 851, 870—871, 47 P.3d 149, 159 (2002), relying on the Washington
Supreme Court’s rejection of a similar challenge in Gore, supra,
at 311—315, 21 P.3d, at 275—277. The Washington Supreme Court denied
discretionary review. 148 Wash. 2d 1010, 62 P.3d 889 (2003). We granted
certiorari.
540
U.S. 965 (2003).
II
This case requires us to apply the
rule we expressed in Apprendi v. New Jersey,
530
U.S. 466, 490 (2000): “Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any
fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed
statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a
reasonable doubt.” This rule reflects two longstanding tenets of
common-law criminal jurisprudence: that the “truth of every accusation”
against a defendant “should afterwards be confirmed by the unanimous
suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbours,” 4 W. Blackstone,
Commentaries on the Laws of England 343 (1769), and that “an accusation
which lacks any particular fact which the law makes essential to the
punishment is … no accusation within the requirements of the common law,
and it is no accusation in reason,” 1 J. Bishop, Criminal Procedure §87,
p. 55 (2d ed. 1872).5
These principles have been acknowledged by courts and treatises since the
earliest days of graduated sentencing; we compiled the relevant
authorities in Apprendi, see 530 U.S., at 476—483, 489—490, n. 15;
id., at 501—518 (Thomas, J., concurring), and need not repeat them
here.6
Apprendi involved a New
Jersey hate-crime statute that authorized a 20-year sentence, despite the
usual 10-year maximum, if the judge found the crime to have been committed
“ ‘with a purpose to intimidate … because of
race, color, gender, handicap, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity.’ ”
Id., at 468—469 (quoting N. J. Stat. Ann. §2C:44—3(e) (West Supp.
1999—2000)). In Ring v. Arizona,
536
U.S. 584, 592—593, and n. 1 (2002), we applied Apprendi to an
Arizona law that authorized the death penalty if the judge found one of
ten aggravating factors. In each case, we concluded that the defendant’s
constitutional rights had been violated because the judge had imposed a
sentence greater than the maximum he could have imposed under state law
without the challenged factual finding. Apprendi, supra, at
491—497; Ring, supra, at 603—609.
In this case, petitioner was
sentenced to more than three years above the 53-month statutory maximum of
the standard range because he had acted with “deliberate cruelty.” The
facts supporting that finding were neither admitted by petitioner nor
found by a jury. The State nevertheless contends that there was no
Apprendi violation because the relevant “statutory maximum” is not 53
months, but the 10-year maximum for class B felonies in §9A.20.021(1)(b).
It observes that no exceptional sentence may exceed that limit. See
§9.94A.420. Our precedents make clear, however, that the “statutory
maximum” for Apprendi purposes is the maximum sentence a judge may
impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury
verdict or admitted by the defendant. See Ring, supra,
at 602 (“ ‘the maximum he would receive if
punished according to the facts reflected in the jury verdict alone’ ”
(quoting Apprendi, supra, at 483)); Harris v.
United States,
536
U.S. 545, 563 (2002) (plurality opinion) (same); cf. Apprendi,
supra, at 488 (facts admitted by the defendant). In other words,
the relevant “statutory maximum” is not the maximum sentence a judge may
impose after finding additional facts, but the maximum he may impose
without any additional findings. When a judge inflicts punishment that
the jury’s verdict alone does not allow, the jury has not found all the
facts “which the law makes essential to the punishment,” Bishop, supra,
§87, at 55, and the judge exceeds his proper authority.
The judge in this case could not
have imposed the exceptional 90-month sentence solely on the basis of the
facts admitted in the guilty plea. Those facts alone were insufficient
because, as the Washington Supreme Court has explained, “[a] reason
offered to justify an exceptional sentence can be considered only if it
takes into account factors other than those which are used in computing
the standard range sentence for the offense,” Gore, 143 Wash. 2d,
at 315—316, 21 P.3d, at 277, which in this case included the elements of
second-degree kidnaping and the use of a firearm, see §§9.94A.320,
9.94A.310(3)(b).7 Had the
judge imposed the 90-month sentence solely on the basis of the plea, he
would have been reversed. See §9.94A.210(4). The “maximum sentence” is no
more 10 years here than it was 20 years in Apprendi (because that
is what the judge could have imposed upon finding a hate crime) or death
in Ring (because that is what the judge could have imposed upon
finding an aggravator).
The State defends the sentence by
drawing an analogy to those we upheld in McMillan v.
Pennsylvania,
477
U.S. 79 (1986), and Williams v. New York,
337
U.S. 241 (1949). Neither case is on point. McMillan involved a
sentencing scheme that imposed a statutory minimum if a judge found
a particular fact. 477 U.S., at 81. We specifically noted that the statute
“does not authorize a sentence in excess of that otherwise allowed for
[the underlying] offense.” Id., at 82; cf. Harris, supra,
at 567. Williams involved an indeterminate-sentencing regime that
allowed a judge (but did not compel him) to rely on facts outside the
trial record in determining whether to sentence a defendant to death. 337
U.S., at 242—243, and n. 2. The judge could have “sentenced [the
defendant] to death giving no reason at all.” Id., at 252. Thus,
neither case involved a sentence greater than what state law authorized on
the basis of the verdict alone.
Finally, the State tries to
distinguish Apprendi and Ring by pointing out that the
enumerated grounds for departure in its regime are illustrative rather
than exhaustive. This distinction is immaterial. Whether the judge’s
authority to impose an enhanced sentence depends on finding a specified
fact (as in Apprendi), one of several specified facts (as in
Ring), or any aggravating fact (as here), it remains the case
that the jury’s verdict alone does not authorize the sentence. The judge
acquires that authority only upon finding some additional fact.8
Because the State’s sentencing
procedure did not com-
ply with the
Sixth Amendment, petitioner’s sentence is invalid.9
III
Our commitment to Apprendi
in this context reflects not just respect for longstanding precedent, but
the need to give intelligible content to the right of jury trial. That
right is no mere procedural formality, but a fundamental reservation of
power in our constitutional structure. Just as suffrage ensures the
people’s ultimate control in the legislative and executive branches, jury
trial is meant to ensure their control in the judiciary. See Letter XV by
the Federal Farmer (Jan. 18, 1788), reprinted in 2 The Complete
Anti-Federalist 315, 320 (H. Storing ed. 1981) (describing the jury as
“secur[ing] to the people at large, their just and rightful controul in
the judicial department”); John Adams, Diary Entry (Feb. 12, 1771),
reprinted in 2 Works of John Adams 252, 253 (C. Adams ed. 1850) (“[T]he
common people, should have as complete a control … in every judgment of a
court of judicature” as in the legislature); Letter from Thomas Jefferson
to the Abbé Arnoux (July 19, 1789), reprinted in 15 Papers of Thomas
Jefferson 282, 283 (J. Boyd ed. 1958) (“Were I called upon to decide
whether the people had best be omitted in the Legislative or Judiciary
department, I would say it is better to leave them out of the
Legislative”); Jones v. United States,
526
U.S. 227, 244—248 (1999). Apprendi carries out this design by
ensuring that the judge’s authority to sentence derives wholly from the
jury’s verdict. Without that restriction, the jury would not exercise the
control that the Framers intended.
Those who would reject Apprendi
are resigned to one of two alternatives. The first is that the jury need
only find whatever facts the legislature chooses to label elements of the
crime, and that those it labels sentencing factors–no matter how much they
may increase the punishment–may be found by the judge. This would mean,
for example, that a judge could sentence a man for committing murder even
if the jury convicted him only of illegally possessing the firearm used to
commit it–or of making an illegal lane change while fleeing the death
scene. Not even Apprendi’s critics would advocate this
absurd result. Cf. 530 U.S., at 552—553 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). The
jury could not function as circuitbreaker in the State’s machinery of
justice if it were relegated to making a determination that the defendant
at some point did something wrong, a mere preliminary to a judicial
inquisition into the facts of the crime the State actually seeks to
punish.10
The second alternative is that
legislatures may establish legally essential sentencing factors within
limits–limits crossed when, perhaps, the sentencing factor is a “tail
which wags the dog of the substantive offense.” McMillan, 477 U.S.,
at 88. What this means in operation is that the law must not go too far–it
must not exceed the judicial estimation of the proper role of the judge.
The subjectivity of this standard
is obvious. Petitioner argued below that second-degree kidnaping with
deliberate cruelty was essentially the same as first-degree kidnaping, the
very charge he had avoided by pleading to a lesser offense. The court
conceded this might be so but held it irrelevant. See 111 Wash. App., at
869, 47 P.3d, at 158.11
Petitioner’s 90-month sentence exceeded the 53-month standard maximum by
almost 70%; the Washington Supreme Court in other cases has upheld
exceptional sentences 15 times the standard maximum. See State v.
Oxborrow, 106 Wash. 2d 525, 528, 533, 723 P.2d 1123, 1125, 1128
(1986) (15-year exceptional sentence; 1-year standard maximum sentence);
State v. Branch, 129 Wash. 2d 635, 650, 919 P.2d 1228, 1235
(1996) (4-year exceptional sentence; 3-month standard maximum sentence).
Did the court go too far in any of these cases? There is no answer
that legal analysis can provide. With too far as the yardstick, it
is always possible to disagree with such judgments and never to refute
them.
Whether the
Sixth Amendment incorporates this manipulable standard rather than
Apprendi’s bright-line rule depends on the plausibility of the claim
that the Framers would have left definition of the scope of jury power up
to judges’ intuitive sense of how far is too far. We think that
claim not plausible at all, because the very reason the Framers put a
jury-trial guarantee in the Constitution is that they were unwilling to
trust government to mark out the role of the jury.
IV
By reversing the judgment below,
we are not, as the State would have it, “find[ing] determinate sentencing
schemes unconstitutional.” Brief for Respondent 34. This case is not about
whether determinate sentencing is constitutional, only about how it can be
implemented in a way that respects the
Sixth Amendment. Several policies prompted Washington’s adoption of
determinate sentencing, including proportionality to the gravity of the
offense and parity among defendants. See Wash. Rev. Code Ann. §9.94A.010
(2000). Nothing we have said impugns those salutary objectives.
Justice O’Connor argues that,
because determinate sentencing schemes involving judicial factfinding
entail less judicial discretion than indeterminate schemes, the
constitutionality of the latter implies the constitutionality of the
former. Post, at 1—10. This argument is flawed on a number of
levels. First, the
Sixth Amendment by its terms is not a limitation on judicial power,
but a reservation of jury power. It limits judicial power only to the
extent that the claimed judicial power infringes on the province of the
jury. Indeterminate sentencing does not do so. It increases judicial
discretion, to be sure, but not at the expense of the jury’s traditional
function of finding the facts essential to lawful imposition of the
penalty. Of course indeterminate schemes involve judicial factfinding, in
that a judge (like a parole board) may implicitly rule on those facts he
deems important to the exercise of his sentencing discretion. But the
facts do not pertain to whether the defendant has a legal right to
a lesser sentence–and that makes all the difference insofar as judicial
impingement upon the traditional role of the jury is concerned. In a
system that says the judge may punish burglary with 10 to 40 years, every
burglar knows he is risking 40 years in jail. In a system that punishes
burglary with a 10-year sentence, with another 30 added for use of a gun,
the burglar who enters a home unarmed is entitled to no more than a
10-year sentence–and by reason of the
Sixth Amendment the facts bearing upon that entitlement must be found
by a jury.
But even assuming that restraint
of judicial power unrelated to the jury’s role is a
Sixth Amendment objective, it is far from clear that Apprendi
disserves that goal. Determinate judicial-factfinding schemes entail less
judicial power than indeterminate schemes, but more judicial power than
determinate jury-factfinding schemes. Whether Apprendi
increases judicial power overall depends on what States with determinate
judicial-factfinding schemes would do, given the choice between the two
alternatives. Justice O’Connor simply assumes that the net effect will
favor judges, but she has no empirical basis for that prediction. Indeed,
what evidence we have points exactly the other way: When the Kansas
Supreme Court found Apprendi infirmities in that State’s
determinate-sentencing regime in State v. Gould, 271 Kan.
394, 404—414, 23 P.3d 801, 809—814 (2001), the legislature responded not
by reestablishing indeterminate sentencing but by applying Apprendi’s
requirements to its current regime. See Act of May 29, 2002, ch. 170, 2002
Kan. Sess. Laws pp. 1018—1023 (codified at Kan. Stat. Ann. §21—4718 (2003
Cum. Supp.)); Brief for Kansas Appellate Defender Office as Amicus
Curiae 3—7. The result was less, not more, judicial power.
Justice Breyer argues that
Apprendi works to the detriment of criminal defendants who plead
guilty by depriving them of the opportunity to argue sentencing factors to
a judge. Post, at 4—5. But nothing prevents a defendant from
waiving his Apprendi rights. When a defendant pleads guilty, the
State is free to seek judicial sentence enhancements so long as the
defendant either stipulates to the relevant facts or consents to judicial
factfinding. See Apprendi, 530 U.S., at 488; Duncan v.
Louisiana,
391
U.S. 145, 158 (1968). If appropriate waivers are procured, States may
continue to offer judicial factfinding as a matter of course to all
defendants who plead guilty. Even a defendant who stands trial may consent
to judicial factfinding as to sentence enhancements, which may well be in
his interest if relevant evidence would prejudice him at trial. We do not
understand how Apprendi can possibly work to the detriment of those
who are free, if they think its costs outweigh its benefits, to render it
inapplicable.12
Nor do we see any merit to Justice
Breyer’s contention that Apprendi is unfair to criminal defendants
because, if States respond by enacting “17-element robbery crime[s],”
prosecutors will have more elements with which to bargain. Post, at
4—5, 9 (citing Bibas, Judicial Fact-Finding and Sentence Enhancements in a
World of Guilty Pleas, 110 Yale L. J. 1097 (2001)). Bargaining already
exists with regard to sentencing factors because defendants can either
stipulate or contest the facts that make them applicable. If there is any
difference between bargaining over sentencing factors and bargaining over
elements, the latter probably favors the defendant. Every new element that
a prosecutor can threaten to charge is also an element that a defendant
can threaten to contest at trial and make the prosecutor prove beyond a
reasonable doubt. Moreover, given the sprawling scope of most criminal
codes, and the power to affect sentences by making (even nonbinding)
sentencing recommendations, there is already no shortage of in terrorem
tools at prosecutors’ disposal. See King & Klein, Apprendi and Plea
Bargaining, 54 Stan. L. Rev. 295, 296 (2001) (“Every prosecutorial
bargaining chip mentioned by Professor Bibas existed pre-Apprendi
exactly as it does post-Apprendi”).
Any evaluation of Apprendi’s
“fairness” to criminal defendants must compare it with the regime it
replaced, in which a defendant, with no warning in either his indictment
or plea, would routinely see his maximum potential sentence balloon from
as little as five years to as much as life imprisonment, see
21
U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A), (D),13
based not on facts proved to his peers beyond a reasonable doubt, but on
facts extracted after trial from a report compiled by a probation officer
who the judge thinks more likely got it right than got it wrong. We can
conceive of no measure of fairness that would find more fault in the
utterly speculative bargaining effects Justice Breyer identifies than in
the regime he champions. Suffice it to say that, if such a measure exists,
it is not the one the Framers left us with.
The implausibility of Justice
Breyer’s contention that Apprendi is unfair to criminal defendants
is exposed by the lineup of amici in this case. It is hard to
believe that the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers was
somehow duped into arguing for the wrong side. Justice Breyer’s only
authority asking that defendants be protected from Apprendi is an
article written not by a criminal defense lawyer but by a law professor
and former prosecutor. See post, at 4—5 (citing Bibas, supra);
Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers 2003—2004,
p. 319.
Justice Breyer also claims that
Apprendi will attenuate the connection between “real criminal conduct
and real punishment” by encouraging plea bargaining and by restricting
alternatives to adversarial factfinding. Post, at 7—8, 11—12. The
short answer to the former point (even assuming the questionable premise
that Apprendi does encourage plea bargaining, but see supra,
at 14, and n. 12) is that the
Sixth Amendment was not written for the benefit of those who choose to
forgo its protection. It guarantees the right to jury trial. It
does not guarantee that a particular number of jury trials will actually
take place. That more defendants elect to waive that right (because, for
example, government at the moment is not particularly oppressive) does not
prove that a constitutional provision guaranteeing availability of
that option is disserved.
Justice Breyer’s more general
argument–that Apprendi undermines alternatives to adversarial
factfinding–is not so much a criticism of Apprendi as an assault on
jury trial generally. His esteem for “non-adversarial” truth-seeking
processes, post, at 12, supports just as well an argument against
either. Our Constitution and the common-law traditions it entrenches,
however, do not admit the contention that facts are better discovered by
judicial inquisition than by adversarial testing before a jury. See 3
Blackstone, Commentaries, at 373—374, 379—381. Justice Breyer may be
convinced of the equity of the regime he favors, but his views are not the
ones we are bound to uphold.
Ultimately, our decision cannot
turn on whether or to what degree trial by jury impairs the efficiency or
fairness of criminal justice. One can certainly argue that both these
values would be better served by leaving justice entirely in the hands of
professionals; many nations of the world, particularly those following
civil-law traditions, take just that course. There is not one shred of
doubt, however, about the Framers’ paradigm for criminal justice: not the
civil-law ideal of administrative perfection, but the common-law ideal of
limited state power accomplished by strict division of authority between
judge and jury. As Apprendi held, every defendant has the right
to insist that the prosecutor prove to a jury all facts legally
essential to the punishment. Under the dissenters’ alternative, he has no
such right. That should be the end of the matter.
* * *
Petitioner was sentenced to prison
for more than three years beyond what the law allowed for the crime to
which he confessed, on the basis of a disputed finding that he had acted
with “deliberate cruelty.” The Framers would not have thought it too much
to demand that, before depriving a man 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.
The judgment of the Washington
Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
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