Minnesota Supreme Court finishes up some important Blakely work

Continuing a big state supreme court day (after this work on prior convictions from Oregon), today the Minnesota Supreme Court handed down two important Blakely rulings: State v. Shattuck, No. C6-03-362 (Minn. Aug 18, 2005) (available here) and State v. Houston, No. A-04-324 (Minn. Aug 18, 2005) (available here).  Here is a helpful (and very quick) summary I received from a helpful reporter of the news: "The MN Supreme Court (in Shattuck) applies Blakely, rejects the Booker remedy, says that this defendant (and maybe all of them on direct appeal?) gets the presumptive sentence, and (in Houston) holds that Blakely announced a new rule."

Interestingly, it took the Minnesota Supreme Court a full eight months to figure out the remedy in Shattuck (the details on the court's initial ruling are here), and that ruling generates a partial dissent.  Once I have a chance to review these decisions more carefully, I hope to add some commentary on these noteworthy Blakely rulings from a leading guideline state.  In the meantime, perhaps readers can get started on analysis via the comments.