Give the SG points for persistence

The Acting Solicitor General’s reply brief (available here) makes a game effort to stick to its game plan, but both the reasoning and the strategy still leaves me puzzled. Let me detail some initial questions/concerns here:

On the applicability of Blakely to the federal sentencing guidelines: The logic of the SG’s argument now seems to be that applying Blakely to the guidelines would essentially convert all guideline enhancement into elements, which is constitutionally problematic because only Congress can pass criminal statutes that create elements. It is a nice effort, aided clearly by the work of the Fourth Circuit in Hammoud, to try to make this case about the validity of Mistretta rather than about defendants’ constitutional rights. But each step in this argument creates new puzzles.

First, it is long-established and essentially uncontested that Ex Post Facto doctrine limits the application of new guideline provisions; but that conclusion seems subject to the same concerns that the SG now raises about the application of Blakely. If treating the guidelines as the functional equivalent of statutes/elements for Ex Post Facto purposes has long been accepted and thought appropriate, I do not see why doing the same for the Sixth Amendment should be a real concern.

Second, though the line of cases culminating in Blakely have thrown around the term “element,” the Court has also emphasized that effects and not form dictate the reach of the Sixth Amendment. Call it an element or a factor or Mary Jane, when the law makes a fact essential to the legal upper-limit of available punishments, five member of the Supreme Court have now said consistently for five years that such a fact must be proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

Third, as I suggested here in discussing Hammoud, there is a “through the looking glass” quality to the government’s argument, especially given the Framers’ apparent interests in democratic checks and balances and in safeguarding individual rights through the Bill of Rights. The consequence of the SG’s argument, as I understand it, is that if and when Congress creates binding sentencing laws though traditional legislative means (securing approval by both houses and signature by the President), then defendants have the benefits of full constitutional procedural rights in the application of those laws. But if and when Congress finds a way to writing binding sentencing laws through non-legislative means (e.g., by creating an agency whose rules will be deemed legally binding despite never being traditionally enacted), then defendants have no procedural rights in the application of those laws.

On the severability of the federal sentencing guidelines if Blakely applies: The SG finally bites the bullet and explains with a bit more candor its complete views on severability. Parole is not back: footnote 3 of the SG’s reply brief says the abolition of parole can be severed. Indeed, it seems all part of the SRA remain in place except the guidelines are no longer binding. But, clarifies the SG, the guidelines are completely jettisoned only in cases with Blakely factors, the guidelines should still apply with full binding force in cases without Blakely factors. The SG concedes that this suggested “use of two different sentencing schemes would no doubt lead to less proportionality and uniformity in sentencing,” but that apparently is the price we must pay to avoid the prospect of “windfall sentences.”

As I have explained here and here and here, the SG’s proposed dual system with advisory guidelines in Blakely cases raises a host of critical administrative questions. But, most fundamentally, it makes it especially important, as I suggested here, to know exactly how many cases have Blakely factors. If only 20% of all federal cases have Blakely factors, the impact of the SG’s proposed dual system with advisory guidelines used in 1 in 5 case is not all that dramatic. But the SG in its reply brief now represents that 65% of cases involve Blakely factors, which would mean that the SG is now urging the use of an advisory guideline system (a system which we know was expressly rejected by Congress when passing the SRA) in roughly two-thirds of all federal cases.

Beyond all these concerns, I wonder if DOJ and the SG fully appreciate the potential for bizarre and harmful gamesmanship which could (and likely would) result from its proposed dual sentencing system. Consider a defendant in a case without Blakely factors who might reasonably think she has a chance of a lower sentence without the guidelines’ limits on the consideration of mitigating circumstances. (Martha Stewart or the defendant in this Ninth Circuit case come to mind.) That defendant would seem to have an incentive to obstruct justice, in order to create a Blakely factor, so that then a judge could be free to sentence lower than the guidelines.

Does DOJ really want a sentencing system in place which could create incentives for defendants to obstruct justice? Or, more importantly, do we really think this model of dual sentencing which could create these incentives better comports with Congress’s goals when passing the SRA than simply requiring the government to actually prove all sentencing-enhancing guideline facts?