Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-6551.ZD1.html
Timestamp: 2015-04-27 00:39:45
Document Index: 693781186

Matched Legal Cases: ['§3553', '§3553', '§3553', '§1170', '§1170', '§2', '§6', '§15']

. Both sentencing schemes grant trial judges considerable discretion in sentencing; both subject the exercise of that discretion to appellate review for “reasonableness”; and both—the California law explicitly, and the federal scheme implicitly—require a sentencing judge to find some factor to justify a sentence above the minimum that could be imposed based solely on the jury’s verdict. Because this Court has held unequivocally that the post-Booker federal sentencing system satisfies the requirements of the Sixth Amendment , the same should be true with regard to the California system. I therefore respectfully dissent.
, and the cases that have followed in its wake, the Court has held that under certain circumstances a criminal defendant possesses the Sixth Amendment right to have a jury find facts that result in an increased sentence. The Court, however, has never suggested that all factual findings that affect a defendant’s sentence must be made by a jury. On the contrary, in Apprendi and later cases, the Court has consistently stated that when a trial court makes a fully discretionary sentencing decision (such as a sentencing decision under the pre-Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 federal sentencing system), the Sixth Amendment permits the court to base the sentence on its own factual findings. See id., at 481; Blakely v. Washington, 542 U. S. 296, 305 (2004)
Applying this rule, the Booker Court unanimously agreed that judicial factfinding under a purely advisory guidelines system would likewise comport with the Sixth Amendment . Writing for the five Justices who struck down the mandatory Federal Sentencing Guidelines system, Justice Stevens stated:
“If the Guidelines as currently written could be read as merely advisory provisions that recommended, rather than required, the selection of particular sentences in response to differing sets of facts, their use would not implicate the Sixth Amendment . We have never doubted the authority of a judge to exercise broad discretion in imposing a sentence within a statutory range… . For when a trial judge exercises his discretion to select a specific sentence within a defined range, the defendant has no right to a jury determination of the facts that the judge deems relevant.” Booker, supra, at 233.2
In a similar vein, the remedial portion of the Court’s opinion in Booker, written by Justice Breyer, held that the Sixth Amendment permits a system of advisory guidelines with reasonableness review.3
Justice Breyer’s opinion avoided a blanket invalidation of the Guidelines by excising the provision of the Sentencing Reform Act, 18 U. S. C. §3553(b)(1) (2000 ed., Supp. IV), that required a sentencing judge to impose a sentence within the applicable Guidelines range. See Booker,543 U. S., at 259. As Justice Breyer explained, “the existence of §3553(b)(1) is a necessary condition of the constitutional violation. That is to say, without this provision … the statute falls outside the scope of Apprendi’srequirement.” Ibid.
It is significant that Booker, while rendering the Guidelines advisory, did not reinstitute the pre-Guidelines federal sentencing system, under which “well-established doctrine bar[red] review of the exercise of sentencing discretion” within the broad sentencing ranges imposed by the criminal statutes. Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U. S. 424, 443 (1974)
. Rather, Booker conditioned a district court’s sentencing discretion on appellate review for “reasonableness” in light of the Guidelines and the §3553(a) factors. See Booker,
supra, at 261 (“Section 3553(a) remains in effect, and sets forth numerous factors that guide sentencing. Those factors in turn will guide appellate courts, as they have in the past, in determining whether a sentence is unreasonable”).
In short, under California law, the “ ‘circumstances’ the sentencing judge may look to in aggravation or in mitigation of the crime include … ‘practically everything which has a legitimate bearing’ on the matter in issue.” People v. Guevara, 88 Cal. App. 3d 86, 93, 151Cal. Rptr.
516 (1979); see also Rule 4.410(b) (“The sentencing judge should be guided by statutory statements of policy, the criteria in these rules, and the facts and circumstances of the case”). Indeed, as one California court has explained, sentencing discretion may even be guided by a “judge’s subjective determination of … the appropriate aggregate sentence” based on his “experiences with prior cases and the record in the defendant’s case.” People v. Stevens, 205 Cal. App. 3d 1452, 1457, 253Cal. Rptr.
177 (1988). “A judge’s subjective belief regarding the length of the sentence to be imposed is not improper as long as it is channeled by the guided discretion outlined in the myriad of statutory sentencing criteria.” Ibid.
The California scheme—like the federal “advisory Guidelines”—does require that this discretion be exercised reasonably. Indeed, the California Supreme Court, authoritatively construing the California statute,8 has explained that §1170(b)’s “requirement that an aggravating factor exist is merely a requirement that the decision to impose the upper term be reasonable.” Black, 35 Cal. 4th, at 1255, 113 P. 3d, at 544 (emphasis in original); see also id., at 1257–1258, 113 P. 3d, at 545(“The jury’s verdict of guilty on an offense authorizes the judge to sentence a defendant to any of the three terms specified by statute as the potential punishments for that offense, as long as the judge exercises his or her discretion in a reasonable manner that is consistent with the requirements and guidelines contained in statutes and court rules”). Even when a court imposes the “presumptive” middle term, its decision is reviewable for abuse of discretion—that is, its decision to sentence at the “standard” term must be reasonable. See People v. Cattaneo, 217 Cal. App. 3d 1577, 1587–1588, 266Cal. Rptr.
Despite these similarities between the California system and the “advisory Guidelines” scheme approved in Booker, the Court nevertheless holds that the California regime runs afoul of the Sixth Amendment . The Court reasons as follows: (1) California requires that some aggravating fact, apart from the elements of the offense found by the jury, must support an upper term sentence; (2) Blakely defined the “statutory maximum” to be “the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant,” 542 U. S., at 303 (emphasis in original); and therefore (3) the California regime violates “Apprendi’sbright-line rule,” id., at 308, that “any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 490.
This argument is flawed. For one thing, it is not at all clear that a California court must find some case-specific, adjudicative “fact” (as opposed to identifying a relevant policy consideration) before imposing an upper term sentence. What a California sentencing court must find is a “circumstanc[e]
in aggravation,” Cal. Penal Code Ann. §1170(b) (emphasis added), which, California’s Court Rules make clear, can include any “criteria reasonably related to the decision being made.” Rule 4.408(a).
The Court downplays the significance of Booker reasonableness review on the ground that Booker-style “reasonableness … operates within the Sixth Amendment constraints delineated in our precedent, not as a substitute for those constraints.” Ante, at 20 (emphasis in original). But this begs the question, which concerns the scope of those “
Sixth Amendment constraints.” That question is answered by the Court’s remedial holding in Booker, which necessarily stands for the proposition that it is consistent with the Sixth Amendment for the imposition of an enhanced sentence to be conditioned on a factual finding made by a sentencing judge and not by a jury.
Booker’sreasonableness review necessarily anticipates that the imposition of sentences above this level may be conditioned upon findings of fact made by a judge and not by the jury. Booker held that a system of “advisory Guidelines” with reasonableness review is consistent with the Sixth Amendment , and the same analysis should govern California’s “requirement that the decision to impose the upper term be reasonable.” Black, 35 Cal. 4th, at 1255, 113 P. 3d, at 544 (emphasis in original). That the California requirement is explicit, while the federal aggravating factor requirement is (at least for now) implicit, should not be constitutionally dispositive.
Unless the Court is prepared to overrule the remedial decision in Booker, the California sentencing scheme at issue in this case should be held to be consistent with the Sixth Amendment . I would therefore affirm the decision of the California Court of Appeal.
1 The Court’s recognition of this is hardly surprising since, as Judge McConnell has pointed out, “fully discretionary sentencing … was the system [that was] in place when the Sixth Amendment was adopted” and that “prevailed in the federal courts from the Founding until enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 … without anyone ever suggesting a conflict with the Sixth Amendment .” McConnell, The Booker Mess, 83 Denver U. L. Rev. 665, 679 (2006). Indeed, the original federal criminal statute enacted by the First Congress set forth indeterminate sentencing ranges for a variety of offenses, leaving the determination of the precise sentence to the judge’s discretion. See, e.g., Act of Apr. 30, 1790, ch. 9, §2, 1 Stat.
112 (crime of misprision of treason punishable by imprisonment not exceeding seven years and fine not exceeding $1,000); §6, id., at 113 (crime of misprision of a felony punishable by imprisonment not exceeding three years and fine not exceeding $500); §15, id., at 115–116 (crime of falsifying federal records punishable by imprisonment not exceeding seven years, fine not exceeding $5,000, and whipping not exceeding 39 stripes); see generally Little & Chen, The Lost History of Apprendi and the Blakely Petition for Rehearing, 17 Fed. Sentencing Rep. 69 (2004).
3 While the dissenters from the remedial portion of the Court’s opinion disagreed with Justice Breyer’s severablity analysis, they did not suggest that the resulting “advisory Guidelines” structure was unconstitutional. Rather, they recognized—as Justice Stevens explained in his portion of the Court’s opinion—that “[i]f the Guidelines as currently written could be read as merely advisory provisions that recommended, rather than required, the selection of particular sentences in response to differing sets of facts, their use would not implicate the Sixth Amendment .” Id., at 233.
8 The Court correctly notes that we need not defer to the California Supreme Court’s construction of federal law, including its judgment as to whether California law is consistent with our Sixth Amendment jurisprudence. See ante, at 21, n. 16. But the California Supreme Court’s exposition of California law is authoritative and binding on this Court. See, e.g., Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684, 691 (1975)
(“[S]tate courts are the ultimate expositors of state law [and] we are bound by their constructions except in extreme circumstances”); Wainwright v. Goode, 464 U. S. 78, 84 (1983)
(per curiam) (“[T]he views of the State’s highest court with respect to state law are binding on the federal courts”); Ring v. Arizona, 536 U. S. 584, 603 (2002)
(recognizing the Arizona Supreme Court’s construction of Arizona sentencing law as authoritative).