Blakely V. Washington - Effect On Subsequent Jurisprudence

Effect On Subsequent Jurisprudence

Although the Court expressly stated that it was not addressing the constitutionality of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, it was hard to resist the conclusion that the Guidelines as then constituted were in jeopardy in light of the tremendous similarity between the structure of the federal Guidelines and the Washington Guidelines at issue in Blakely. Six weeks after the decision in this case, the Court agreed to review two cases involving the constitutionality of sentence enhancements under the federal Guidelines — United States v. Booker and a companion case, United States v. Fanfan — an extraordinary step for the Court to take during the summer months. The Court ordered the briefs in Booker to be submitted during the month of September 2004, and scheduled oral argument in Booker for the first day of the 2004 Term, Monday, October 4. The Court's opinion in Booker came out on January 12, 2005, and drastically changed the legal framework within which federal sentencing takes place.

Also, many states had to decide how Blakely applied to their sentencing systems. California, notably, concluded it did not affect its sentencing scheme in a case decided by the California Supreme Court called People v. Black. The U.S. Supreme Court later concluded that Blakely did apply in California, thereby overruling Black with its decision in Cunningham v. California.

Read more about this topic:  Blakely V. Washington

Famous quotes containing the words effect on, effect and/or subsequent:

    Movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our century. Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them—as an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.
    Ben Hecht (1893–1964)

    The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

    Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply; and it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no subsequent connection can justify, if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived.
    Jane Austen (1775–1817)