Discuss criminal sentencing by judges and juries and the discretion judges may exercise when rendering a sentence. Be sure to include the Blakely case in your discussion.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers may vary.If the defendant in a criminal trial is deemed guilty, a punishment must be decided. In the vast majority of jurisdictions, the trial judge decides punishment. In the past, judges have had wide discretion to impose sentences by taking into account all they knew about the defendant and his actions, regardless of whether those actions constituted a crime or were proven to a jury. But in a landmark 2004 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that judges may not increase defendants' sentences on the basis of what they perceive as aggravating factors (circumstances that seem to make the "crime" worse). In Blakely v. Washington (2004), the Court reserved those determinations for juries.The ruling came from a case in which the defendant, Ralph Blakely, pled guilty to kidnapping his estranged wife, a crime that carried a penalty of 53 months. But the judge, after deciding that Blakely acted with "deliberate cruelty"-a circumstance that Blakely had not admitted and that no jury had decided-increased his sentence to 90 months. In overturning this sentence (and thereby striking down dozens of state sentencing laws and affecting thousands of cases), the Court said the imposition of additional time violated Mr. Blakely's right to a jury trial.In a handful of states, sentencing is determined by a jury. After the verdict is rendered, the jury is reconvened, and attorneys present evidence relevant to the sentencing decision. The jury then deliberates until it agrees on a recommended punishment. In cases involving the death penalty, jurors, rather than judges, decide the sentence (Ring v. Arizona, 2002).