Lots of Blakely doings in Minnesota

Blakely decisions seem to come from Minnesota in groups, and yesterday three Blakely rulings of note were handed down by the Minnesota appellate courts.  Two addressed Blakely's applicability to departures, and one concerned Blakely retroactivity.

In the area of departures, neither State v. Johnson, 2004 WL 2659955 (Minn. App. Nov. 23, 2004), nor State v. Berry, 2004 WL 2663239 (Minn. App. Nov. 23, 2004), appears to break any major new ground. However, Johnson seems important for clarifying that Blakely "applies to durational sentencing departures imposed in the context of a [unique form of Minnesota] stipulated-facts trial."

And Berry seems important for reiterating a previous state ruling in Hanf (discussed here) that "Blakely does not apply to dispositional departures in Minnesota, but [does apply to] durational departures." (Recall that I am a fan of Hanf, because the decision robustly embraces the sort of offense/offender distinction I discuss in this forthcoming article to support a distinction between dispositional and durational departures.)

Addressing retroactivity, State v. Petschl, 2004 WL 2663594 (Minn. App. Nov. 23, 2004), thoroughly and thoughtfully explains its conclusion that "Blakely established a new constitutional rule that does not fall within either of the Teague exceptions," and thus "Blakely does not apply retroactively to collateral review of appellant's 1998 conviction."