Word: amendmenteers
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The U.S. Supreme Court is well aware that enhancing sentences this way can be unfair, and the justices have struggled with it since 2000. That's when the court ruled 5-4 in Apprendi v. New Jersey that a New Jersey man's 10-year sentence (the maximum under state...
The Supreme Court returned to the issue four years later in Blakely v. Washington. This time, the justices decided, also by a 5-4 vote, that Washington State's sentencing rules violated a kidnapper's Sixth Amendment right. Since the judge determined that the kidnapper had acted with "deliberate cruelty...
The U.S. Supreme Court is well aware that enhancing sentences this way can be unfair, and the justices have struggled with it since 2000. That's when the court ruled 5-4 in Apprendi v. New Jersey that a New Jersey man's 10-year sentence (the maximum under state...
The Supreme Court returned to the issue four years later in Blakely v. Washington. This time, the justices decided, also by a 5-4 vote, that Washington state's sentencing rules violated a kidnapper's Sixth Amendment right. Since the judge determined that the kidnapper had acted with "deliberate cruelty...
In January 2005, the high court finally gave an answer: enhancements required by the federal guidelines also violate the right to a jury trial, but the constitutional fix is to make the guidelines optional. So a judge can use his traditional discretion to determine sentences, while consulting the guidelines, and...