Sentence examples for increased a sentence from inspiring English sources

When the Supreme Court ruled in a hate-crime case two years ago that juries, rather than judges, had to find "any fact" that increased a sentence beyond the statutory maximum, it tried to exclude the death penalty from that sweeping decision.

The right to a jury trial, the majority said, does not allow a judge to increase a sentence based on factual findings made only by the judge.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, the judge makes a number of crucial findings that do not necessarily bring a sentence above the statutory maximum, but that can end up increasing a sentence sharply within the statutory range.

(Other aggravating factors, such as a history of prior convictions, can increase a sentence; mitigating factors, such as having a minimal role in the offense in question, can reduce a sentence).

That decision, issued in June 2000, held that any factors that increase a sentence above the ordinary maximum must be charged in the indictment and proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

In that ruling, the justices held that factors that increase a sentence beyond the ordinary maximum must be specifically charged in the indictment and not left to a judge's discretion.

But the guidelines also empower the judge to increase a sentence, based upon the judge's conclusions that the crime may have been more serious than the jury found.

That decision struck down key parts of a state sentencing guidelines system, finding that it gave the judge discretion to increase a sentence based on facts that had not been established by a jury in a guilty verdict or by a guilty plea.

The other case, United States v. Cotton, No. 01-687, raises the question of whether certain federal sentences imposed before the Apprendi decision warrant automatic reversal because they violated its requirement that factors that could increase a sentence must be charged in the indictment.

Last month the United States Supreme Court struck down provisions of the state's Ethnic Intimidation Act, or hate crimes law, that allowed a judge to increase a sentence in cases in which he or she found any sort of bias as an aggravating circumstance.

Rather, the dissenters said, if the problem was a violation of the right to trial by jury, the solution also lay with the jury: to require prosecutors to make indictments more specific and to present to the jury any factor that would increase a sentence beyond the ordinary range.