Hicks v. Oklahoma

In Hicks v. Oklahoma, 447 U.S. 343 (1980), the Oklahoma trial court instructed the jury in accordance with the recidivist statute then in effect that if it found Hicks guilty, it was required to impose a mandatory 40-year prison term. The jury returned a guilty verdict and imposed the mandatory term. (Hicks, supra, 447 U.S. at pp. 344-345.) Hicks unsuccessfully sought to have his sentence set aside after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals declared the mandatory 40-year sentence unconstitutional in another case. On appeal, Hicks sought to have his sentence set aside in light of the unconstitutionality of the provision mandating a sentence of 40-years. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his sentence, concluding that the defendant suffered no prejudice because the sentence handed down was within the range that could have been imposed for his offense. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed. Noting that the defendant had 'a substantial and legitimate expectation that he will be deprived of his liberty only to the extent determined by the jury in the exercise of its statutory discretion,' the court concluded that the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals 'denied the defendant the jury sentence to which he was entitled under state law, simply on the frail conjecture that a jury might have imposed a sentence equally as harsh as that mandated by the invalid habitual offender provision.' Id. at 346. That court reasoned the unconstitutional statute did not prejudice Hicks because his sentence was within the range of punishment the jury could have imposed. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and vacated the judgment, ruling as follows: "Where ... a State has provided for the imposition of criminal punishment in the discretion of the trial jury, it is not correct to say that the defendant's interest in the exercise of that discretion is merely a matter of state procedural law. The defendant in such a case has a substantial and legitimate expectation that he will be deprived of his liberty only to the extent determined by the jury in the exercise of its statutory discretion, ... and that liberty interest is one that the Fourteenth Amendment preserves against arbitrary deprivation by the State." (Id. at p. 346.)