WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court reversed a 19th-century precedent and ruled Monday that a defective indictment does not deprive a court of jurisdiction.
The important decision should restore heavy sentences against a Baltimore drug gang.
Stanley Hall Jr. led "a vast drug operation" in Baltimore, helped by six co-defendants, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said in the unanimous opinion.
Hall and the others were indicted in October 1997 on charges of conspiring to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 5 kilograms of cocaine and 50 grams or more of cocaine base.
A superseding indictment in March 1998 extended the time period for the conspiracy, added five suspects, but changed the wording of the charge to a "detectable amount" of cocaine and base.
The superseding indictment did not cite any of the drug quantities that lead to higher penalties under federal law.
Congress placed a sentence cap of 20 years on convictions for offenses involving a "detectable" quantity of cocaine and base.
However, after the men were convicted, a federal judge applied a different provision of federal law, one that allows a life sentence if the offenses involved at least 50 grams of cocaine base.
The judge relied on evidence at trial that showed the gang was responsible for at least 500 grams of cocaine base, and sentenced Hall and another defendant to 30 years in prison, and the other defendants to life.
While their appeal was pending in 2000, the Supreme Court decided a separate case, Apprendi vs. New Jersey. In that case, a Supreme Court majority said any fact that enhances or lengthens a sentence -- other than a prior conviction -- must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
A federal appeals court, using Apprendi and the 19th-century precedent, threw out the sentences against Hall and his co-defendants, saying the judge had no jurisdiction to impose a sentence for a crime not charged in the indictment.
Monday, the Supreme Court reversed.
In his opinion, Rehnquist said the appeals court relied on 1887's Ex parte Bain, in which the Supreme Court ruled that since an amendment to an indictment was improper, the jurisdiction was gone and a judge had "no right to proceed any further in the progress of the case for want of an indictment."
But when Bain was decided, the Supreme Court's jurisdiction itself was extremely limited, and even the word "jurisdiction" had a different meaning than it does today, Rehnquist said.
The chief justice said the Supreme Court began to abandon the Bain principle as early as 1951. Rehnquist delivered the coup de grace in Monday's opinion.
"Insofar as it held that a defective indictment deprives a court of jurisdiction," Rehnquist said, "Bain is overruled."
Congress meant for defendants convicted of large-scale drug conspiracies to get harsher penalties than those convicted of offenses involving lesser quantities, he added.
"Indeed, the fairness and integrity of the criminal justice system depends on meting out to those inflicting the greatest harm on society the most severe punishments," Rehnquist said. "The real threat then to the 'fairness, integrity and public reputation of judicial proceedings' would be if (Hall and the other defendants), despite the overwhelming and uncontroverted evidence that they were involved in a vast drug conspiracy, were to receive a sentence prescribed for those committing less substantial drug offenses because of an error that was never objected to at trial."
Monday's decision reverses the appeals court ruling and sends the case back for a new hearing based on the high court opinion.
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(No. 01-697, United States vs. Cotton et al.)
