Summary
The United States Supreme Court reinstated the sentence of a Washington man who had threatened his wife with a gun, reversing a decision of the Supreme Court of Washington. Arturo Recuenco was convicted by a jury of assault, and the jury also found he had used a deadly weapon. The judge sentenced him to an additional three years for using a gun, in accordance with Washington law. After the trial, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Blakely v. Washington that sentence enhancement facts such as these must be found by the jury. The Washington Court of Appeals found that the error was harmless, because the jury found he had used a weapon and the gun was the only weapon at issue in the trial. The Washington Supreme Court reversed, holding that “Blakely error” can never be harmless. CJLF argued, and the U.S. Supreme Court held, that errors such as this do not require reversal where it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the result would have been the same in the absence of the error. [CJLF brief in PDF.]
