Oregon v. Thomas Eugene Ice (555 U.S. 160)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 14, 2009 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 555 U.S. 160 · 129 S. Ct. 711
- Decided
- January 14, 2009
- Term
- October Term 2008
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns the scope of the Sixth Amendment’s jury-trial guarantee, as construed in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000), and Blakely v. Washington, 542 U. S. 296 (2004). Those decisions are rooted in the historic jury function — determining whether the prosecution has proved each element of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt. They hold that it is within the jury’s province to determine any fact (other than the existence of a prior conviction) that increases the maximum punishment authorized for a particular offense. Thus far, the Court has not extended the Apprendi and Blakely line of decisions beyond the offense-specific context that supplied the historic grounding for the decisions. The question here presented concerns a sentencing function in which the jury traditionally played no part: When a defendant has been tried and convicted of multiple offenses, each involving discrete sentencing prescriptions, does the Sixth Amendment mandate jury determination of any fact declared necessary to the imposition of consecutive, in lieu of concurrent, sentences? Most States continue the common-law tradition: They entrust to judges’ unfettered discretion the decision whether sentences for discrete offenses shall be served consecutively or concurrently. In some States, sentences for multiple offenses are presumed to…
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