State v. Timmons

103 P.3d 315, 209 Ariz. 403, 442 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 33, 2005 Ariz. App. LEXIS 1
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedJanuary 7, 2005
Docket2 CA-CR 2004-0058
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 103 P.3d 315 (State v. Timmons) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Timmons, 103 P.3d 315, 209 Ariz. 403, 442 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 33, 2005 Ariz. App. LEXIS 1 (Ark. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinions

OPINION

BRAMMER, J.

¶ 1 After a jury trial, appellant Gerald Ray Timmons was found guilty of armed robbery, aggravated robbery, six counts of kidnapping, and six counts of aggravated assault. The trial court sentenced Timmons to a combination of consecutive and concurrent, presumptive and aggravated prison terms totaling 30.5 years. Timmons appeals.

¶ 2 The court aggravated the sentences for the armed robbery and aggravated robbery convictions based on the following aggravating factors: 1) significant emotional harm to multiple victims; 2) the offenses were committed for pecuniary gain; 3) Timmons committed the crimes with accomplices; 4) Tim-mons was on probation in California at the time of the offenses; and 5) Timmons’s criminal history. The court concluded that these aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors it had found that Timmons was remorseful and had family and community support.

¶ 3 Timmons argues on appeal that the trial court violated Blakely v. Washington, — U.S. —, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), by aggravating his sentences using factors not found by the jury. Timmons also claims that Arizona’s sentencing scheme is unconstitutional because A.R.S. § 13-702(B), the subsection of the statute requiring a trial court to find and weigh sentencing factors, is not severable from the rest of the scheme. Finally, Timmons contends that, on remand for resentencing, the state is precluded from submitting any aggravating factors to the jury that it had not charged in the indictment. We vacate Timmons’s aggravated sentences and remand the case for further proceedings.

Discussion

Blakely Challenge

¶ 4 Timmons argues that the trial court violated Blakely by aggravating his sentences based on factors not found by the jury. In Blakely, the United States Supreme Court, elaborating on its earlier holding in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), held that a judge may not impose a sentence beyond that authorized solely by a jury’s verdict or a defendant’s guilty plea unless it is based on facts either admitted by the defendant or submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, without additional findings of fact, the presumptive sentences for the aggravated robbery and dangerous nature, armed robbery convictions were 3.5 years and 10.5 years, not the aggravated sentences of seven and twenty years the trial court imposed. A.R.S. §§ 13-1902, 13-1903, 13-1904, 13-604, 13-701. The aggravated sentences, therefore, violate Blakely, unless Blakely’s requirements have been waived or otherwise satisfied.

Waiver

¶ 5 The state argues that Timmons has waived the “application of Blakely by failing to raise any right-to-jury-trial issues at sentencing.” Blakely, however, was decided four months after Timmons was sentenced. Further, at the time of Timmons’s sentencing, “our prior decision in State v. Brown, 205 Ariz. 325, 70 P.3d 454 (App.2003), [396]*396later vacated by our supreme court, 209 Ariz. 200, 99 P.3d 15 (2004), had ruled Apprendi inapplicable to aggravating circumstances under A.R.S. § 13-702(C).” State v. Resendis-Felix, 209 Ariz. 292, ¶ 4, 100 P.3d 457, 459 (App.2004). Although Timmons could have made an Apprendi-type challenge in the trial court, despite Blakely’s not yet having been decided, we do not fault him for not raising a claim that Brown, the only Arizona case that had at that time directly addressed it, had rejected. Additionally, a Blakely sentencing error, unless harmless, constitutes fundamental error. Resendis-Felix, 209 Ariz. 292, ¶ 5, 100 P.3d at 459 (“Sentencing a defendant outside constitutional limits creates an illegal sentence, which can constitute fundamental error.”).

Must Jury Find All Aggravating Factors ?

¶ 6 The state further argues that, because one Blakely-compliant aggravating factor — the presence of accomplices — is implicit in the jury verdict, the trial court was permitted to find additional aggravating factors without violating Blakely’s mandate. The jury found beyond a reasonable doubt only that Timmons had committed his offense with accomplices,1 one of the five factors the court used to aggravate two of Timmons’s sentences. And a recent decision by Division One of this court held that one Blakelycompliant factor increases the maximum prison term authorized by a guilty verdict or plea to the aggravated term for the offense. State v. Martinez, 209 Ariz. 280, 100 P.3d 30 (App.2004); see also State ex rel. Smith v. Conn, 209 Ariz. 195, 98 P.3d 881 (App.2004).

¶ 7 Nevertheless, we decline to follow Division One’s lead because, in State v. Ring, 204 Ariz. 534, 65 P.3d 915 (2003) (Ring III), our supreme court essentially rejected its analysis in the capital sentencing context, finding-one Sixth Amendment-compliant factor insufficient, in and of itself, to permit a trial court to find additional aggravating factors, notwithstanding that an Arizona capital defendant technically becomes eligible for the death penalty when a single capital aggravating factor is established. In Ring III, our supreme court found that the state had too narrowly construed the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002) (Ring II), ruling instead that Ring II requires a jury finding on each aggravating factor.

¶ 8 Both Ring II and Blakely are the legal progeny of Apprendi. Both articulated the constitutional requirement that only a jury may find beyond a reasonable doubt any factor used to aggravate a sentence beyond that permitted solely by a guilty verdict or plea, whether in the capital or noncapital context. We find nothing in Blakely requiring us to depart from our supreme court’s analysis of the Ring II standard.

¶ 9 Further, in Ring III, our supreme court noted that the capital sentencing scheme requires balancing of aggravating and mitigating factors, a process that can only be accomplished by considering all of the aggravating factors. Arizona’s noncapi-tal sentencing statute, § 13-702, similarly requires that, before a defendant is eligible for an aggravated term, a trial court must conclude, after weighing all factors, that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors.

¶ 10 Finally, despite the state’s insistence that one Blakely-compliant

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Bluebook (online)
103 P.3d 315, 209 Ariz. 403, 442 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 33, 2005 Ariz. App. LEXIS 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-timmons-arizctapp-2005.