In Wilson v. Knowles, No. 07-17318, the Ninth Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, granted habeas relief in a California 3-strikes case based on the trial court's Apprendi error in ruling that a prior DUI offense qualified as a "strike" by finding additional facts from the offense beyond the mere "fact of the prior conviction." For a fuller summary, see Ninth Circuit Blog, 2/8/11; and Sentencing Law & Policy Blog, 2/8/11. No EDCA connection here except for the defense attorney on appeal, me. Here's a summary from the SF Chronicle, 2/10/11:
A federal appeals court has overturned the 25-years-to-life sentence of a South Bay man who was caught driving while intoxicated in 1999, six years after a drunken accident that killed a passenger.
A Santa Clara County judge based his decision to sentence Rick Wilson under California's "three strikes and you're out" law on findings he made about Wilson's previous crime. That violated Wilson's right to have a jury decide those questions, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 2-1 ruling Tuesday.
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Wilson, a salesman at a San Jose construction supply company, was arrested in February 1999 when he ran a red light and refused to take a blood test. A jury convicted him of a drunken driving charge that was a felony because he had pleaded no contest in 1993 to vehicular manslaughter.
The 1993 accident in Nevada County killed passenger John Haessly, whom Wilson had picked up hitchhiking, and sent Wilson's girlfriend, Debra Horvat, to the hospital.
According to court records, both Horvat and Wilson had been drinking. Horvat started driving but then gave her keys to Wilson, and Wilson told police Horvat had grabbed the wheel just before the accident, an allegation she denied.
At a nonjury sentencing hearing in 2000, Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy found that the 1993 accident amounted to two strikes - manslaughter and infliction of great bodily injury on Horvat - and imposed the three-strikes sentence of 25 years to life.
State courts and U.S. District Judge James Ware upheld Wilson's sentence. But the appeals court said Murphy had reached conclusions on issues that should have gone to a jury - including whether Horvat suffered great bodily injury, whether she had taken part in the crime by giving Wilson the keys, and whether she had caused the accident by grabbing the wheel.