## Facts

- In 1993, Rick J. Wilson drove while intoxicated, crashed, killed a hitchhiker, and injured his girlfriend.
- Wilson pleaded no contest to (1) gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and (2) DUI causing bodily injury; both arose from the same incident.
- The 1993 case was resolved by plea (no jury findings) and resulted in placement in a residential treatment program.
- In 2000, Wilson was convicted of DUI with a prior felony conviction.
- At 2000 sentencing, the court treated Wilson’s two 1993 convictions as two prior “strikes” and imposed a Three Strikes sentence of 25 years to life.
- To classify the 1993 DUI-injury conviction as a “serious felony” strike, the sentencing judge reviewed the 1993 record and made additional findings (including that Wilson personally inflicted great bodily injury on a non-accomplice), which were not elements necessarily established by the 1993 conviction and were not found by a jury.

## Issues

1. Whether, under Apprendi, due process permits a Three Strikes sentence to be increased based on a later sentencing judge’s factual findings about the conduct underlying a prior conviction, beyond the fact of the prior conviction.
2. Whether the state court’s approval of using post hoc judicial fact-finding to transform a “bodily injury” conviction into a “great bodily injury” serious felony strike was an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law under AEDPA.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of habeas relief.
- The court held that the state court’s approval of treating the 1993 DUI-injury conviction as a serious felony strike based on new judicial fact-finding was an objectively unreasonable application of Apprendi.
- The court directed that habeas relief be granted because the Three Strikes sentence rested on facts increasing the statutory maximum that were not found by a jury or necessarily established by the prior conviction.

## Legal Principles

- Under Apprendi, any fact that increases punishment beyond the statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt, except for the fact of a prior conviction.
- The prior-conviction exception permits reliance on the existence and legal character of a prior conviction, but does not permit a later judge to find new, sentence-enhancing facts about the prior offense that were not necessarily established by the conviction or admitted in a manner equivalent to jury findings.
- On federal habeas review, AEDPA permits relief only if the state court decision was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Supreme Court precedent; converting “bodily injury” into “great bodily injury” through judicial inference exceeded permissible reliance on a prior conviction.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that California’s use of a later sentencing judge’s fact-finding to recharacterize a prior DUI-injury conviction as a serious-felony strike violated Apprendi’s jury-factfinding rule and was an objectively unreasonable application of clearly established federal law under AEDPA, requiring habeas relief from the Three Strikes sentence.


Wilson v. Knowles, 638 F.3d 1213 (9th Cir. 2011)