The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the right to a trial by jury and to due process apply to people who face a steep sentencing enhancement under federal law, in a ruling that transfers some power from the hands of judges to the public and will affect many criminal defendants' future punishments.

The procedural history of the case is a bit of a whirlwind. But at its center is Paul Erlinger, who was charged in 2017 with being a felon in possession of a firearm and sentenced to 15 years under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), which increases the punishment for that offense—felon in possession of a firearm—from a 10-year maximum to a 15-year minimum if the defendant has been convicted previously of three violent felonies or serious drug offenses on separate occasions.

At sentencing came one of the initial twists, when the judge who handed down the 15-year punishment made clear it was inappropriate. Erlinger, who pleaded guilty, had gained steady employment, started a family, and remained drug-free in the more than a decade since his previous convictions, so a five-year sentence, the judge said, would be "fair." But under the ACCA, the court's hands were tied.

Then came the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which said shortly thereafter that two of Erlinger's offenses considered for the purposes of the ACCA did not actually qualify as violent felonies or serious drug crimes. Prosecutors, however, were undeterred. They returned to court and invoked convictions related to burglaries Erlinger committed 26 years before the felon in possession of a firearm charge, when he was 18 years old. Erlinger countered that the burglaries in question had been a part of one criminal episode—not distinct events as the ACCA requires—and that, most importantly, a jury would need to make the consequential determination about the separateness of those offenses.

The sentencing court disagreed, ruling it was the judge's decision and that the court was bound by the ACCA, thus reimposing the 15-year sentence that it once again called "unfortunate" and "excessive."

But Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the 6–3 majority opinion, explained that Erlinger did indeed have the 5th Amendment and 6th Amendment right to ask a jury whether those offenses were committed separately and if he is therefore vulnerable to the massive increase in incarceration that the sentencing court itself characterized multiple times as unjust. The outcome was at least somewhat predictable when considering yet another twist: After Erlinger appealed on the grounds that his constitutional rights had been violated, the government agreed. But the 7th Circuit still refused to reconsider his sentence, leaving Erlinger to ask the Supreme Court.

Core to Gorsuch's opinion is Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000), a Supreme Court precedent that ruled it was unconstitutional when a judge sentenced a defendant more harshly on the basis that a shooting had allegedly been motivated by racial animus, because no jury considered or made any determination beyond a reasonable doubt on that factor. A jury and a jury only, the Court ruled, may find "facts that increase the prescribed range of penalties to which a criminal defendant is exposed" when it will cause the penalty to exceed the prescribed statutory maximum.

But Gorsuch also says the Court has something else on its side today: history. "Prominent among the reasons colonists cited in the Declaration of Independence for their break with Great Britain was the fact Parliament and the Crown had 'depriv[ed] [them] in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury,'" he writes. "The Fifth and Sixth Amendments placed the jury at the heart of our criminal justice system" in order "to mitigate the risk of prosecutorial overreach and misconduct" and serve as a check on the government.

This is not a novel area for Gorsuch, who has made clear his respect for the right to a trial by jury. Last month, he rebuked the Court's demurral from hearing a case concerning Florida's use of six-person juries as opposed to the traditional, historical practice of using 12-person panels.

Though much has been made of the ideologically fractured nature of the current Court, the decision in Erlinger did not fall neatly along partisan lines. Among the dissenters were Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the latter of whom argued that Apprendi—and, as an extension, the case law that has sprung from it—was wrongly decided. "I recognize that many criminal defendants and their advocates prefer the Apprendi regime, which provides some defendants with more procedural protections at sentencing," Jackson writes. "In my view, however, the benefit that some criminal defendants derive from the Apprendi rule in the context of their individual cases is outweighed by the negative systemic effects that Apprendi has wrought," which she says has hamstrung judges and increased sentencing disparities.

"The only thing judges may not do consistent with Apprendi is increase a defendant's exposure to punishment based on their own factfinding," counters Gorsuch. "Does Justice Jackson really think it too much to ask the government to prove its case (as it concedes it must) with reliable evidence before seeking enhanced punishments under a statute like ACCA when the 'practical realit[y]' for defendants like Mr. Erlinger is exposure to an additional decade (or more) in prison?"

The post The Supreme Court Again Strengthens the Right to a Jury Trial in Criminal Sentencing appeared first on Reason.com.

During a sleepover in August 2017, three 14-year-old boys, two of whom were about to start attending St. Francis High School in Mountain View, California, took a picture of themselves wearing dark green acne masks. One of the boys, who was hosting the other two, had severe acne, and his friends applied the masks in an act of playful solidarity. They took the picture because they thought they looked "silly."

Three years later, after another teenager obtained the picture and posted it online, the two St. Francis students were falsely accused of posing in blackface and forced to leave the school under the threat of expulsion. This week a California jury awarded the boys, identified as A.H. and H.H. in their lawsuit against the school, $1 million in damages, plus a tuition reimbursement of about $70,000.

"A photograph of this innocent event was plucked from obscurity and grossly mischaracterized during the height of nationwide social unrest," the boys' familes said when they filed their lawsuit in 2021. The photo came to light in June 2020, a month after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd. "St. Francis became involved in a number of racial scandals," NBC News reports, "including one where recent graduates of the school posted a meme about Floyd's death on Instagram." Because of that context, A.H. and H.H. argued, St. Francis officials rushed to judgment, tarring the students as racist and disrupting their lives without giving them a chance to explain the photo.

"The boys did not use the facemasks or take the photograph with any ill-intent, bias or prejudice, let alone in connection with any racist sentiments or epithets," the lawsuit said. "Defendants took it upon themselves to use the innocent and wholly unrelated photograph of the boys to make the malicious and utterly false accusation that the boys had been engaging in 'blackface,' and to recklessly assert that the photograph was 'another example' of racism" at St. Francis. That false accusation, according to the complaint, interrupted the boys' educations, destroyed their local reputations, and forced their families to move.

The jury agreed that St. Francis had treated the boys unfairly, thereby violating an oral contract. More controversially, the jury accepted a claim under the California Supreme Court's "common law doctrine of fair procedure," which extends due process requirements to private actors such as unions, hospitals, insurers, and professional organizations. Last year, the court ruled that the doctrine also applies to private universities. But according to the attorneys who represented A.H. and H.H., this is the first time the doctrine has been applied to a private secondary school.

"This case is significant not only for our clients but for its groundbreaking effect on all private high schools in California, which are now legally required to provide fair procedure to students before punishing or expelling them," said Dhillon Law Group partner Krista Baughman. "The jury rightly confirmed that St. Francis High School's procedures were unfair to our clients and that the school is not above the law."

Karin Sweigart, another lawyer at the firm, emphasized that it took four years to definitively refute the school's erroneous claim about the supposedly racist nature of the photo. "The jury's verdict finally cleared our clients' names after four long years of repeated personal attacks from St. Francis High School," she said. "Schools are supposed to protect and nurture children, not sacrifice them when it is convenient for public relations purposes."

The school's representatives said they "respectfully disagree with the jury's conclusion" about "the fairness of our disciplinary review process." They added that the school is "exploring legal options," including a possible appeal.

The plaintiffs' attorneys note that "St. Francis expelled the boys within 24 hours, without considering their evidence or offering any hearing." They add that "the school's actions led to significant personal, educational, and emotional consequences for the students."

The boys' parents amplified that point. "We would never wish the pain, humiliation, and suffering St. Francis has inflicted on our families on anyone," they said, "but we are thankful that the jury has spoken," "vindicated our boys," and "forced St. Francis to finally take responsibility for their repeated personal attacks."

Even with "time to reflect and contemplate after the heat of the moment had subsided," the parents said, St. Francis officials "don't regret their actions" and "would do the same thing today." Although the case has consumed "twenty percent of our boys' lives," they said, "the sacrifice is worth it to clear our boys' names" and "to try and make sure that St. Francis can never again assume a child is guilty" without giving him "the opportunity to show [his] innocence."

The post California Students Get $1 Million After They Were Expelled for Wearing Supposedly Racist Acne Masks appeared first on Reason.com.