Notable state court sentencing rulings

Kind readers have helped bring to my attention a number of interesting and important recent state court sentencing rulings:

• From Idaho, Idaho v. Helms, No. 2006-2 (Idaho Ct. App.  Jan. 6, 2006) (available here), reverses a life sentence given to a defendant for throwing toilet water on a prison guard.  Despite the defendant's sorrid criminal history, the majority in Helms finds the sentence "excessive under any reasonable view of the facts," and reduces it to an indeterminate life sentence with the 15 year fixed consecutive.  DIsagreeing, one judge on the panel concludes his dissent with this line: "The only thing I find 'unreasonable' in Helms's sentence is the majority's modification of it to a fifteen-year fixed sentence."

• From Ohio, Hernandez v. Kelly, No. 2006-Ohio 126 (Ohio Jan. 13, 2006) (available here) grants a state habeas petition upon finding that the "trial court in Hernandez's case committed error because it did not notify him at his sentencing hearing that he would be subject to mandatory postrelease control and did not incorporate postrelease control into its sentencing entry."

• From Oregon, Miller v. Lampert, No. S51716 (Or. Jan. 12, 2006) (available here), reaffirms the Oregon Supreme Court's earlier (pre-Blakely and pre-Shriro) decision that Apprendi is not to be applied retroactively, and the Court now specifically considers and rejects the argument that the change in burden of proof made Apprendi a watershed rule.