Seventh Circuit Rejects Effort to Extend Padilla Beyond Deportation Context

In Padilla v. Kentucky (2010), the United States Supreme Court held that an attorney renders constitutionally inadequate representation by failing to advise his or her client of the deportation consequences of a guilty plea. Prior to Padilla, many lower courts had adopted a distinction between “direct” and “collateral” consequences of a guilty plea. While defense counsel was required to advise the client of direct consequences (e.g., a potential prison sentence), counsel was not required to warn the client of collateral consequences (which included, in the view of some lower courts, the risk of deportation). Padilla, however, cast doubt on the existence and meaning of a direct/collateral distinction, which immediately raised questions about whether attorneys might be required to advise clients regarding other sorts of consequences that had previously been regarded as collateral.

Earlier today, in United States v. Reeves (No. 11-2328), the Seventh Circuit turned aside an effort to extend Padilla to the risk that a conviction in one case will be used to enhance the defendant’s sentence in a future case.

Here’s what happened. 

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California Answers Some of the Graham/Miller Questions, Sort Of

As I discussed in a recent post, the United States Supreme Court left many questions unanswered in its two recent decisions on life without parole for juveniles.  In the first case, Graham v. Florida (2010), the Court banned LWOP for juveniles convicted of nonhomicide offenses.  Then, in Miller v. Alabama (2012), the Court banned mandatory LWOP even for juveniles convicted of homicide.  These were important Eighth Amendment decisions, but the lower courts have been left to implement them without much guidance.

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court began to address some of the unanswered questions in People v. Caballero.  I think Caballero got things right, as far as it went, but the case left much open for future litigation. 

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Ice Gets Iced

Earlier this summer, in Southern Union Co. v. United States (No. 11-94), the Supreme Court seemed to reverse course yet again in its on-and-off revolution in the area of jury-trial rights at sentencing.  The revolution began with Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000), which held that a jury, and not a judge, must find the facts that increase a statutory maximum prison term.  The revolution seemed over two years later, when the Court decided in Harris v. United States that no jury was required for mandatory minimum sentences.  But, another two years after that, in Blakely v. Washington, the revolution was back on, with the Court extending Apprendi rights to sentencing guidelines.  Blakelywas especially notable for its hard-nosed formalism: Apprendi was said to have created a bright-line rule firmly grounded in the framers’ reverence for the jury; we are not in the business, declared Justice Scalia for the Blakely majority, of carving out exceptions to such clear rules in the interest of efficiency or other contemporary policy concerns.

Then came Oregon v. Ice in 2009, which seemed to signal that the Court had again grown weary of the revolution.  

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