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Friday, April 01, 2005

Ind. Law - [Updated] House unanimously OKs revamping sentencing rules

"House unanimously OKs revamping sentencing rules" is the headline to a brief story today by Niki Kelly of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. She writes:

The Indiana House voted unanimously Thursday to significantly alter Indiana’s criminal sentencing scheme in response to U.S. and Indiana Supreme Court decisions. Currently in Indiana, judges sentence criminals via a guideline that provides a presumptive sentence but allows the judge to add or subtract specific amounts of time for mitigating or aggravating circumstances. For instance, someone convicted of rape faces a presumptive sentence of 10 years to which 10 years could be added and four years could be subtracted.

But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that any factors used to enhance a sentence have to be proven to a jury. That means judges can’t use additional information to add to the presumptive sentence without a separate jury proceeding. The Indiana Supreme Court recently issued a similar opinion.

To meet the new rules, Senate Bill 96 removes presumptive sentences from Indiana’s scheme – leaving a wide range of years for judges to choose from, said Rep. Luke Messer, R-Indianapolis. A judge would not have to find aggravating circumstances to give a criminal the maximum sentence, according to Messer. The old presumptive sentence will still be the advised prison term but is not binding.

The bill now goes back to the Senate for a vote to concur in the House changes, or to send it to a conference committee to iron out differences.

Also on Indiana sentencing, I highly recommend to you Michael Ausbrook's blog, INCourts, where he has been commenting upon the Indiana Supreme and Appeals Court post-Blakely decisions. I particularly recommend his posts from March 30 and 31, titled "Smylie: A Trip to the Nether World of the NFP," and "Payne & Campbell: More from the Nether World."

[More] See this entry in Sentencing Law & Policy blog, the gist of which is:

INCourts reports here (building on a report from the Indiana Law Blog here) that "there has been an amendment to [Indiana's] Senate Bill 96, the General Assembly's attempt to deal with Blakely, that would appear to Booker-ize Indiana's sentencing statutes." Before the amendment, Indiana's legislative fix was headed toward Blakely-izing (which is the remedy now in place because it was adopted by the Indiana Supreme Court in its big Smylie decision earlier this month.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 1, 2005 07:29 AM
Posted to Indiana Law