Celebrating liberty, Blakely-style

I have plans later today to celebrate liberty by watching a parade and fireworks.  But, showing my true law geek colors, I started today by re-reading Justice Scalia’s opinion for the Court in Blakely v. Washington.  Though other recent Supreme Court decisions may also make for good reads on July 4th, I am always inspired by the principles of freedom, democracy and limits on government oppression that I see at the core of Blakely‘s holding.  As a reminder of how these patriotic values course though Blakely, consider these passages from Justice Scalia’s opinion for the Court:

That right [of jury trial] is no mere procedural formality, but a fundamental reservation of power in our constitutional structure.  Just as suffrage ensures the people’s ultimate control in the legislative and executive branches, jury trial is meant to ensure their control in the judiciary.

The jury could not function as circuitbreaker in the State’s machinery of justice if it were relegated to making a determination that the defendant at some point did something wrong, a mere preliminary to a judicial inquisition into the facts of the crime the State actually seeks to punish.

There is not one shred of doubt … about the Framers’ paradigm for criminal justice: not the civil-law ideal of administrative perfection, but the common-law ideal of limited state power accomplished by strict division of authority between judge and jury.  As Apprendi held, every defendant has the right to insist that the prosecutor prove to a jury all facts legally essential to the punishment.

The Framers would not have thought it too much to demand that, before depriving a man of three more years of his liberty, the State should suffer the modest inconvenience of submitting its accusation to “the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbours,” 4 Blackstone, Commentaries, at 343, rather than a lone employee of the State.

In addition to finding these quotes stirring, these quotes also make me a bit sad in the wake of Booker and some state rulings and legislation that have responded to Blakely by expanding judicial sentencing discretion.  Though there are virtues to enhanced judicial sentencing discretion, that sort of response to Blakely tends to treat the right to a jury trial as a “mere procedural formality” and also diminishes the ability for juries to “function as circuitbreaker in the State’s machinery of justice.”