Ninth Circuit Found Failure to Register Sentence Unconstitutional

Among the many stories I missed while I was traveling over the break was the Ninth Circuit's holding in Gonzales v. Duncan. The court held that the application of the three-strikes law resulted in a constitutionally excessive penalty. From the opinion:

The California courts have characterized the state’s registration requirement as a regulatory offense, a “most technical violation” that “by itself, pose[s] no danger to society.”  People v. Cluff, 105 Cal. Rptr. 2d 80, 81, 86 (Cal. Ct. App. 2001).  In a case materially indistinguishable from this one, the California Court of Appeal concluded that a Three Strikes sentence of 25 years to life imprisonment for violating the registration requirement was “grossly disproportionate to the offense” and violated the Eighth Amendment.  People v. Carmony, 26 Cal. Rptr. 3d 365, 368-69 (Cal. Ct. App. 2005). Although our standard of review is more deferential, we too conclude that Gonzalez’s sentence is grossly disproportionate to his offense. We further conclude that the California Court of Appeal’s decision affirming Gonzalez’s sentence constitutes an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). We therefore reverse the district court’s denial of Gonzalez’s petition and remand with instructions to grant the petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

It's interesting to see the finding that registration laws are only "regulatory" work for a defendant for once. It has always been a strained argument that a law with serious prison penalties could be considered "regulatory," but at least that finding was applied in a consistent manner by the Ninth Circuit.

Doug Berman also had some interesting comments on the case:

The fact that a federal circuit court has found a non-capital prison sentence unconstitutionally excessive is big new in itself.  Indeed, I cannot recall a federal circuit ruling to this effect in all the years I have been blogging.  Add in the fact that this is a state habeas case involving a sex offender and California's Three Strikes law, and the story gets that much richer. 

Now lets also notice the fact that the (notoriously liberal?) Ninth Circuit in this case was represented by a panel with two republican appointees and only on (senior) democratic appointee, while the state of California was represented by the (notoriously liberal?) state AG Jerry Brown.  And the author of the opinion was Judge Bybee, who is considered among the most conservative of the circuit appointees of outgoing President George Bush. 

This is fascinating stuff, as is what might come next.  I sincerely hope that California might seek cert, because such a petition coming from the state has a much greater likelihood of garnering a grant than the many petitions coming from defendants who lose Eighth Amendment challenges to long prison sentences in the circuit courts.

After the headache that Kennedy v. Louisiana created for the Court, I'm not sure it will be too eager to hear another 8th Amendment case anytime soon. However, I agree that it is about time that the Court gave greater guidance to excessive punishment law for non-death cases.

How Appealing also had posts on the case here and here.