Friends in high places

With many thanks to Michael Ausbrook of INCourts for the head’s up, I was extremely pleased to discover that I apparently have readers and fans in the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council (IPAC).  Yesterday, two days before the Indiana Supreme Court hears its Blakely cases of Heath and Smylie (background here and here), IPAC filed an amicus brief in which my forthcoming article “Conceptualizing Blakely” and its discussion of an offense/offender distinction play a prominent role.  (Over at INCourts you can get more background here and here on the Indiana brief and the Heath and Smylie arguments.)

The full IPAC brief, which you can access here, is an interesting read not only for the offense/offender discussion, but also for its views on consecutive sentencing after Blakely and its assertion that Indiana “courts need not await action by the legislature to establish remedial procedures to insure compliance with Blakely.”  But, of course, ever the egoist and egotist, my favorite parts of the brief are those where my “Conceptualizing Blakely” article (available at this post) gets heavy play.  And I especially liked the brief’s conclusion, which states: “If Blakely is held to govern Indiana sentencing statutes making a distinction between offense facts and offender characteristics is essential to conducting a rational sentencing system.”