More big Ohio Blakely news

I have frequently spotlighted the interesting stories surrounding the application of Blakely to Ohio’s sentencing laws (general background here and here, post-Booker developments here and here). The tale continue with the Ohio First Appellate District’s ruling late last week in State v. Montgomery, 2005-Ohio-1018 (1st Dist. Mar. 11, 2005) (available here)

As reported here last month, though most of Ohio’s intermediate appellate courts had found Blakely largely inapplicable in Ohio, the First Appellate District in State v. Bruce, 2005-Ohio-373 (Ohio 1st Dist. Feb. 4, 2005) (available here), concluded that Booker significantly altered the Blakely analysis in Ohio.  The Bruce court explained that, though it had previously concluded that “Blakely did not materially affect the Ohio sentencing scheme,” the Supreme Court’s “recent decision [in] Booker [makes] clear that this interpretation was wrong.” 

Interestingly, the Bruce court only had occassion to address Blakely‘s application to judicial fact-finding in support of maximum terms under Ohio law, but Mongtomery now extends the analysis to judicial fact-finding in support of any sentence above the Ohio statutory minimum (and does so despite the fact that two other Ohio appellate districts have rejected the approach taken in Bruce):

As we have noted previously, Blakely‘s bright-line rule is that any fact that increases the penalty for a crime above the prescribed statutory maximum must be found by a jury or admitted by the defendant.  In Bruce, we held that the statutory maximum is the maximum term a sentencing court can impose without any additional findings by the court.  Under R.C. 2929.14(B), the only prison term a sentencing court can impose on an offender who has not previously served a prison term, without making additional findings, is the minimum prison term allowed by law for the offense.  Thus, we hold that the statutory maximum for an offender who has not previously served a prison term is the minimum prison term allowed by law for the offense….

While our decision today to treat the minimum prison term as the statutory maximum for offenders who have not previously served a prison term is in conflict with the Third Appellate District’s decision in State v. Trubee and the Tenth Appellate District’s decision in State v. Abdul-Mumin, we believe that it comports with our holding in Bruce, where we explained that the “statutory maximum” sentence is the maximum sentence a court may impose without any additional findings, and with Booker, where the Supreme Court reaffirmed the bright-line rule that any fact that affects the level of punishment above the statutory maximum must be found by a jury or admitted by the defendant.

As I have highlighted before, in memos linked here, the Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission has been tracking Blakely developments closely.  It appears that this Commission will now need to update its two memos (available here and here) on Blakely and Booker in Ohio.  Even more importantly, the Montgomery ruling highlights that the Ohio Supreme Court needs to jump into this scrum as soon as possible.