By Noah Powelson<\/p>\n
Juries are not required for judges to determine if a defendant qualifies for an enhanced sentence in New York, despite the U.S. Supreme Court saying otherwise, according to a landmark ruling from the Appellate Division, Second Department. <\/p>\n
The Appellate Division, Second Department ruled on Wednesday that defendants are not entitled to have a jury determine if they qualify for an enhanced sentence based on the timeline of prior convictions. The decision has widespread implications for repeat felons, who can now receive a sentence beyond the maximum otherwise allowed, based on a judge\u2019s determination alone. The ruling also likely will set up a larger legal debate in the state\u2019s highest court. <\/p>\n
The appeals court made the decision in the case of a Queens man, Malik Gardner, who was arrested for illegal drug and weapon possession charges in 2018.<\/p>\n
Gardner pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced in 2019, but he also had a prior criminal weapon possession conviction from 2006. During sentencing, Queens Supreme Court Justice Gia Morris determined he must be sentenced as a second felony offender.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Gardner moved to have his sentence vacated and argued, among other things, that only a jury could determine if his prior conviction was within the 10-year timeline used to determine whether he qualified as a first- or second-time felony offender. Morris granted Gardner\u2019s motion in 2024 and resentenced him as a first-time violent felony offender. The Queens District Attorney\u2019s Office appealed and brought the case before the appellate court. <\/p>\n
An enhanced sentence is the practice of imposing a sentence beyond the standard maximum for a felony defendant who has two or more qualifying prior felony convictions within the past 10 years. <\/p>\n
In New York state, judges have the discretion to determine if a felony defendant qualifies for an enhanced sentence. <\/p>\n
But that practice puts the state at odds with the U.S. Supreme Court which, under Erlinger v United States, found that only a jury could determine if a defendant\u2019s most recent conviction fell within 10 years of their previous conviction. <\/p>\n
In Gardner\u2019s case, the Appellate Division, Second Department had the unique chance to weigh in on whether a jury is needed solely to determine if a defendant\u2019s prior convictions occurred within 10 years of the current offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hold that it does not,\u201d the appellate court\u2019s decision read. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision in Erlinger does not alter the landscape of New York\u2019s predicate felony offender statutes, the constitutionality of which is well-settled,\u201d the decision continued. \u201cThe defendant in this case was not constitutionally entitled to have a jury determine the length of the previous period of incarceration for the purposes of tolling the 10-year lookback period.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court ruled that the issue Erlinger specifically addressed \u2013 a sentencing provision of the Armed Career Criminal Act regarding enhanced sentencing \u2013 is fundamentally different from the provisions of New York\u2019s repeat felony offender statutes and does not affect their constitutionality.<\/p>\n
The appellate court also ruled that courts are already required to determine the dates on which a defendant was admitted to and discharged from a correctional facility while serving a prior sentence, and that that determination is akin to a \u201cfact of prior conviction.\u201d Under Apprendi v. New Jersey, the appellate decision states, judges may properly determine facts of prior conviction without a jury determination.<\/p>\n
The judges cited Erlinger itself, and quoted the decision in their ruling \u2013 \u201cIt is wildly inefficient for our system to try to fit the square peg of factfinding related to past criminality for sentencing purposes into the round hole of the existing processes that govern jury determinations.\u201d <\/p>\n
Following their decision, the appellate court judges reversed the resentencing of Gardner as a first-time felony offender, and remitted the case back to Morris\u2019 court. <\/p>\n
But the debate over the legal issue is likely far from over. <\/p>\n
Gardner\u2019s attorney, Randall Unger, told the Eagle he plans to appeal the decision, bringing the case to the Court of Appeals. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m disappointed but not surprised,\u201d Unger said about the Second Department\u2019s decision. \u201cThe First Department previously reached the same decision. I hope the Court of Appeals accepts the case and rules differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
The contrasting rulings between the state and federal courts have led to widespread confusion among judges about when they should or should not bring in a jury to determine whether a defendant qualifies for an enhanced sentence.<\/p>\n
While the state\u2019s higher courts have maintained that judges have the discretion to enhance a sentence, the lack of clear guidance of how to navigate different federal and state instructions leaves many judges hesitant to do so.<\/p>\n
For those judges who say they can\u2019t issue enhanced sentences on their own anymore, the uncertainty often means scheduling a separate jury trial just to determine sentencing. That means spending more time and resources to bring in a new jury just to determine if the defendant has been convicted multiple times over the past decade.<\/p>\n
But doing so comes with its own risks, as courts would have to navigate keeping a jury impartial while also telling them the defendant was already convicted of the crime. <\/p>\n
One Queens judge, who was granted anonymity, previously told the Eagle the Erlinger decision threw the lower courts into disarray. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s impractical to have the same jury hear the trial and then make that determination, so you have to select a new jury to do that,\u201d the Queens judge told the Eagle. \u201cWhat\u2019s the new jury going to hear? The jury knows [the defendant] is a convicted felon. There\u2019s not going to be much sympathy there. Can they make that determination without bias?\u201d <\/p>\n
Anthony Sabino, a private attorney and professor of law at St. John\u2019s University\u2019s Peter J. Tobin College of Business, said that while the current ruling keeps New York\u2019s sentencing practices in place, Gardner\u2019s case could very well make its way to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
“This is quite possibly a case that might make its way to the Supreme Court of the United States,\u201d Sabino told the Eagle. \u201cThe larger question which looms here is the constitutional requirements that a jury and only a jury \u2013 not a judge \u2013 determines the facts which a judge then relies upon in passing a sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court has been particularly sensitive to that question in recent years, most notably with the Apprendi case, where the high Court found it unconstitutional for a judge to enhance a defendant\u2019s sentence on his own discretion, without the jury deciding the facts necessary for that sentence enhancement.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor now, our local courts say it is constitutional, and accords with Apprendi,\u201d Sabino added. \u201cBut if this comes before the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, will they agree? Only time will tell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Noah Powelson Juries are not required for judges to determine if a defendant qualifies for an enhanced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-373714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}