Case Citator › State v. Hughes

State v. Hughes

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Overruled in part
Court
Supreme Court of Washington
Citation
154 Wash. 2d 118
Decided
Confirmed treatments
4
Flagged citations read
62 of 62
Citing cases (total)
62
Treatment dates
2006–2008
Overruled in part
A reviewed court has overruled part of this case’s holding. State v. Hughes was overruled in part on its rule that a Sixth Amendment sentencing error can never be harmless. The U.S. Supreme Court held that this kind of error can be reviewed for harmlessness.
More on how this was screened

Later Washington decisions also applied amended sentencing statutes in settings where Hughes had rejected a sentencing jury or a criminal history based enhancement under the former law. Four confirmed treatments are listed below; the other flagged citations have been read.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

62 later cases cite State v. Hughes; 62 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on State v. Hughes?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Overruled in part

  • The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Hughes’s categorical rule that a Blakely sentencing error can never be harmless; its other holdings were not before the Court.

    Washington v. Recuenco · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    In State v. Hughes, 154 Wash. 2d 118, 110 P. 3d 192 (2005), however, decided the same day as the present case, the Supreme Court of Washington declared Blakely error to be “‘structural’ erro[r]” which “‘will always invalidate the conviction.’ ” ... Failure to submit a sentencing factor to the jury, like failure to submit an element to the jury, is not structural error. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Washington and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • After Washington v. Recuenco, the Washington Supreme Court applied harmless error review to a Blakely violation, departing from Hughes’s categorical bar.

    State v. Suleiman · Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc · filed

    ¶ 16 In Hughes, we analyzed whether the trial court engaged in improper Blakely fact finding in each of three consolidated cases. ... We went on to hold that a Blakely Sixth Amendment violation cannot be harmless. Id. at 148, 110 P.3d 192. ... ¶ 25 Harmless Error: In State v. Recuenco, 154 Wash.2d 156, 110 P.3d 188 (2005), this court held that a Blakely Sixth Amendment error never constitutes harmless error. The United States Supreme Court recently reversed this holding in Washington v. Recuenco, 126 S.Ct. at 2553, though the Court left open the question of whether Blakely might always be harmful under state law. ... Pursuant to RAP 13.7(b), we remand to the Court of Appeals for consideration of whether the Blakely error in this case was indeed harmless.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Superseded by statute

  • The court held that the 2007 amendment authorized a sentencing jury on remand, replacing Hughes’s rule under the former sentencing statute.

    State v. Doney · Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 3 · filed

    He based this motion on State v. Hughes[2] which held that the sentencing statutes did not provide any mechanism authorizing the trial court to impanel a jury. ... Part of the amendment stated that if a new sentencing hearing is required, the superior court can impanel a jury to consider aggravating factors that supported the previous exceptional sentence. RCW 9.94A.537(2); see Laws of 2007, ch. 205, § 2. ... However, if Mr. Doney's case is remanded, the Blakely-fix statute would apply and Mr. Doney would be entitled to a jury determination of aggravating factors.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The court held that the 2005 amendment allowed a criminal history based exceptional sentence that Hughes had found unavailable under the former statute.

    State v. Newlun · Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 1 · filed

    ¶ 21 In Hughes, the court noted that case law interpretations of the exceptional sentence provisions of the pre-2005 SRA did not allow for the imposition of an exceptional sentence solely on the basis of criminal history because that criminal history is reflected in the offender score: ... ¶ 22 However, Hughes addressed RCW 9.94A.535 as it was written prior to its 2005 legislative revision. ... Thus, the above-quoted language from Hughes does not apply to RCW 9.94A.535(2)(c) as it is now written.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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