PRESS RELEASE

In a unanimous per curiam opinion released today, the United States Supreme Court has denied review of a sex offender’s claim that his 47-year prison sentence was unconstitutional.  The Court’s holding in Burton v. Stewart concluded that the lower federal courts did not have jurisdiction to hear the defendant’s claim, which violated federal rules limiting review of successive petitions on habeas corpus.

Quoting from the opinion, “The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) established a stringent set of procedures that a prisoner ‘in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court,’ must follow if he wishes to file a ‘second or successive’ habeas corpus application challenging that custody. . . . Burton’s 2002 petition was a ‘second or successive’ habeas application for which he did not seek, much less obtain, authorization to file.”

The California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation had joined this case to encourage today’s decision.  “A decision favoring the criminal in this case would have provided convicted criminals with a way to circumvent the limits on multiple reviews of state judgments,” said the Foundation’s Legal Director Kent Scheidegger.  “Congress enacted these limits to prevent endless review of a defendant’s claims on habeas corpus,” he added.  The Court’s decision utilized arguments and research introduced in the Foundation’s amicus curiae brief.

The case involved the conviction and sentence of Lonnie Lee Burton for crimes he committed on October 18, 1991.  On that day, Burton followed a 15-year-old boy home from school in Federal Way, Washington, a town 25 miles from Seattle.  Once home, the boy answered the door to find Burton offering to sell tickets for a local hockey team.  When the boy declined and refused to let him in to use the telephone, Burton pulled a gun and forced his way inside.  He then took the boy to an upstairs bedroom and forced him to submit to several sex acts.  When finished, Burton ordered the boy to stare at a clock for 15 minutes, while he took $160 from his parents’ dresser and fled.  Sometime later, the boy’s father found him in the bedroom, still frightened that Burton might be in the house.

A few days later, Burton flew to Indiana using an alias and a stolen credit card.  He was subsequently arrested by Indiana authorities.  While awaiting extradition back to Washington for other crimes, Burton told a cellmate about the rape in Federal Way, and another rape in Snohomish County, Washington.  The cellmate later reported Burton’s statements to Washington authorities.  At the trial for the Federal Way rape, prosecutors introduced evidence indicating that the victim selected Burton from a police lineup, and a neighbor identified Burton and the car he was using on the date of the crime.  An inmate at the Snohomish County Jail also testified about how Burton had told him the details of the rape.  The jury convicted Burton of rape, robbery, and burglary, and he was sentenced to prison.

His conviction was later upheld on direct appeal, but his sentence was recalculated after one of his prior convictions was overturned and a second sentence was reversed on appeal.  At his final sentencing hearing, the court calculated his sentence based upon the recent convictions; his prior Washington convictions of forgery, sexual exploitation of a minor, child molestation, and rape of a child; and Indiana convictions of fraud and theft.  Because his record exceeded the state’s criteria to qualify Burton for the maximum guidelines sentence, the judge handed down consecutive sentences for the rape, robbery, and burglary, totaling 47 years and required that they be served consecutively.

Burton’s challenge to his sentence was rejected by the Washington Court of Appeals, which ruled that it was valid under state law based upon his current and prior convictions.  Although the trial judge had found the additional factors of deliberate cruelty, sophistication, and planning, these were not required to make the sentence valid.

In 1998, while his sentencing appeal was pending, Burton filed a federal habeas corpus petition claiming that his conviction was invalid.  The petition form clearly explained that federal rules prohibited future petitions on any issues currently undecided by the state courts.  The federal District Court denied the habeas corpus petition in 2000, and the denial was later affirmed by the Court of Appeals.

In 2002, Burton filed a second federal habeas corpus petition, this time challenging his sentence.  Later that year, a federal magistrate, while denying the state’s assertion that the petition violated federal rules against successive petitions, also rejected Burton’s claims.  The federal District Court then affirmed the holding that same year.

In June 2004, while Burton’s appeal of the District Court’s ruling was pending, the United States Supreme Court announced its ruling in Blakely v. Washington.  That decision created a new requirement that a jury find the specific aggravating factors, other than prior convictions, to increase a criminal’s sentence.  Because of this decision, in addition to the other claims against his sentence, Burton argued that it violated the new rules announced in Blakely.  The Court of Appeals rejected these claims in July 2005.  Last June, the Supreme Court agreed to consider them.

In its amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation argued that Burton’s 2002 habeas corpus petition challenging his sentence, filed two years after his first petition attacking the conviction was denied, is a subsequent petition prohibited by federal law, and the lower federal courts did not have jurisdiction to consider it.  The brief also argued that the change in sentencing rules required by Blakely, because they are not fundamental to a fair trial, cannot be applied retroactively to any case which is already final on direct appeal.  Even if the new rule was in force during Burton’s sentencing, it would have had no effect because the only factors needed for his sentence were his convictions for multiple felonies.  The Blakely rule does not require prior convictions to be found by juries, because the defendant has already had or waived a jury trial in the prior proceeding.

“While the Blakely question remains to be decided in another case, it was very important for the Court to address the jurisdictional issue to prevent the lower federal courts from circumventing the rules Congress enacted to bring these cases to an end,” said Scheidegger.