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CA: Ruling opens way for legal challenges (9th Circuit)
Monterey Herald ^ | 6/2/05 | David Kravets - AP

Posted on 06/02/2005 5:30:21 PM PDT by NormsRevenge

SAN FRANCISCO - Thousands of inmates doing federal time in the West won a chance to challenge their sentences under a federal appellate court's ruling Wednesday.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the largest appeals court, which covers nine Western states, mirrors and conflicts with other federal circuits across the country. In the end, the Supreme Court might settle the ongoing dispute over federal sentencing guidelines adopted in 1984.

The case decided Wednesday concerned the fallout of a Supreme Court ruling in January, when the justices struck down part of the federal sentencing system. About 60,000 federal defendants are sentenced each year.

Under the criminal system, juries usually consider a person's guilt or innocence. But judges have been deciding matters such as the amount of drugs involved in a crime or the number of victims in a fraud. Those factors are used, under the federal guidelines, to add years to someone's sentence.

To cure constitutional deficiencies in allowing judges, during sentencing, to consider facts that a jury did not decide at trial, the Supreme Court decided that judges should consult sentencing guidelines in determining prison terms -- but only on an advisory basis.

The justices said that procedure would protect a defendant's right to a jury trial, and they left it to the federal appellate courts to ensure that sentences are reasonable.

Toward that end, the San Francisco appeals court, ruling 7-4, said Wednesday the only reasonable way to ensure that the high court's precedent is followed is to allow all federal inmates whose conviction is on appeal to challenge their sentences -- a number the court estimated in ''perhaps the thousands.'' The dissenting judges said the decision opens the floodgates of appeals.

The majority, however, noted that a new sentence may not be required, but that judges must revisit sentences and are free to depart from mandatory sentencing guidelines.

Some appeals courts have interpreted the January ruling more harshly. They have allowed re-sentencing only if the record is clear that the judge would have come to a different conclusion had there been no constraints in the guidelines.

''There's no obligation for a judge to impose a different sentence,'' said Steven Hubachek, the lawyer for Alfred Ameline, whose case decided Wednesday by the appeals court was the third time the 9th Circuit ruled on his drug conspiracy conviction

In January, Justice Antonin Scalia predicted that the Supreme Court's ruling would ''wreak havoc on federal district and appellate courts.'' Justice John Paul Stevens said that his colleagues ''erased the heart'' of reforms intended to ensure that sentences do not vary widely from one courtroom to another.

Ameline was sentenced to 150 months imprisonment in 2002 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in Great Falls, Mont. He did not admit any amount of drugs, but the judge accepted that it was 1,603 grams based on claims from the government.

Using that drug weight and other factors, the sentencing range was 135-to-168 months, and the judge voluntarily chose the middle ground.

Now a judge is free to re-sentence Ameline as if that guideline range was not mandatory. His attorney, Hubachek, suggested Ameline should be sentenced to about two years because the judge wrongly concluded the quantity of drugs and is free to render a more appropriate judgment outside the guidelines that were once mandatory.

The Justice Department, which fought re-sentencing Ameline, declined to comment.

The case is United States v. Ameline, 02-30326.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Government; Politics/Elections; US: California; US: Montana
KEYWORDS: 9thcircuit; challenges; judiciary; legal; opens; ruling

1 posted on 06/02/2005 5:30:21 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge

Leave it to the 9th CIRCUS,...... sheesh!!!!!!!


2 posted on 06/02/2005 5:31:50 PM PDT by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: NormsRevenge

The Ninth Circus Court of Schlemiels at work as usual doing anything in their power to destroy the United States. These are liberals, "activists," and judicial tyrants urinating on the Constitution as always.


3 posted on 06/02/2005 5:42:07 PM PDT by FormerACLUmember (Honoring Saint Jude's assistance every day.)
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To: SandRat

Hey, if this ruling stands, THEY don't have to do the work...why not roll the dice and hope they won't have to review the sentences?

Except they do have to, and they will have to, because the SupCt has already pooped downhill and the 9th is on the hook like everyone else. As the dissent notes, EVERY ONE of the 9th Circus judgments touching on Booker has been VACATED and remanded for reconsideration. This will be tossed, too.

Here's the 9th Circus dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/D3EA6DEA6FA27C68882570130065D1E5/$file/AmelineOpn_Pt2.pdf?openelement


4 posted on 06/02/2005 6:02:15 PM PDT by LibertarianInExile (<-- sick of faux-conservatives who want federal government intervention for 'conservative things.')
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To: SandRat

The Ninth Circuit again....who'd a thunk it. Well, that 60 thousand more fraudulent Dem votes in '08 I guess.


5 posted on 06/02/2005 7:09:51 PM PDT by commonasdirt (Reading DU so you won't hafta)
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