Legal Question in Criminal Law in Arizona

Re: Appealing sentencing under Blakely

Rule 32 PCR for (1) attorney not doing presentence interview with defendant (ineffective assistance) and (2) sentencing aggravation not found by jury (change in law).

Re: Appealing sentencing under Blakely

If there is still time he could (1) file a Motion for Reconsideration based upon Blakely; (2) appeal the illegal sentence under Blakely; (3) file Post Conviction if the reconsideration/appeal time has expired.

Re: Appealing sentencing under Blakely

What were the dates that the plea was entered and that your friend was sentenced. In terms of plea agreements the main ones that are affected by Blakely involve pleas that were entered before the Blakely decision but senteced after the decision.

After the decision, most prosecutors offices began including specific waivers of the Blakely right to a jury determination in the plea agreements. If your friend entered such a plea he agreed to allow the judge to make the decision ahead of time. Persons who entered pleas before the decision which did not include such language were then given the benefit of Blakely at sentencings which occurred after.

At the same time, on many of the pleas which were entered without a Blakely waiver, the prosecutors (at least in Maricopa County) threatened to pull out of plea agreements if a subsequent waiver was not signed. Many defense attorneys allowed thier clients to sign these waivers (after the actual pleas were entered) out of fear that they would lose the benifits of the plea agreement. The Court has since ruled that prosecutors could not pull out of such pleas - so in hindsight, the advice to sign one of these post plea entry waivers was faulty - this could bring a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under Rule 32, If the Judge was completely off base his decision this could also be a claim under Rule 32, however this is a very tough case to make as the judge is given a great deal of discretion in making these decisions.