People of Michigan v. Rahim Omarkhan Lockridge

Summary

The Michigan Supreme Court held that the Apprendi rule as extended by Alleyne applies to Michigan's sentencing guidelines, rendering them unconstitutional to the extent they require judicial fact-finding—beyond facts admitted by the defendant or found by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt—to score offense variables that increase the floor of the guidelines minimum sentence range. As a remedy, the Court severed MCL 769.34(2) to the extent it made the scored range mandatory, struck down MCL 769.34(3)'s substantial-and-compelling-reason departure requirement, and made the guidelines advisory only, while requiring sentencing courts to consult them, justify the sentences imposed, and subjecting departures to reasonableness review. Because Lockridge received an upward-departure sentence that did not rely on the improperly scored range, he could not show prejudice under plain-error review and his sentence was affirmed; the Court also prescribed Crosby-style remands for similarly situated defendants sentenced on or before July 29, 2015, and overruled People v Herron. Justice Markman, joined by Justice Zahra, dissented, contending that Michigan's indeterminate system produces no mandatory minimum and no Sixth Amendment violation, and would have affirmed the Court of Appeals.