United States V. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 1255, “2005”
The Sentencing Reform Act:
Congresses’s basic goal in passing the “sentence reform act of 1984” was to move the sentencing system in the direction of increased uniformity, 28 U.S.C.S 991 (b) (1) (b).
The court ruled that the Sixth Amendant, right to jury trial, requires that other than a prior conviction only facts admitted by a defendant or proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury may be used to calculate a sentence exceeding the prescribe statutory maximum sentence, whether the defendant has pleaded guilty or convicted at trial. The maximum sentence that a judge may impose is based upon the facts admitted by the defendant approved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
And it’s majority decision the Court struck down the provision of the federal sentencing statue that required federal district judge is to impose a sentence within the United States Federal Sentencing Guidlines range, along with the provisions that deprived federal appeals courts of the power to review sentences imposed outside of the range. The Court instructed federal district judges to impose a sentence with references to a wider range of sentencing factors set forth by the federal sentencing statue and directed federal appeals court to “review criminal sentences for reasonableness” which the Court left undefined.
That Uniformity does not consist simply of similar sentences for those convicted of violations of the same statue. It consists, more importantly, of “ the similar relationships between sentences” and real conduct relationships that Congress sentencing statues help to advance.
Missouri never adopted anything of this nature for protection of defendants constitutional right to “equal protection under the law” do we think Congress passed this law for fun? Or, to see that equal protection under the law was given to every defendant that his or her constitutional right guarantees?