Opinion ID: 2570544
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Right to a Jury Determination of Aggravating Sentencing Factors

Text: For his crimes against L.R., defendant was convicted of two counts of forcible rape with firearm use. (§§ 261, subd. (a)(2), 12022.5.) The trial court sentenced defendant to the upper term of eight years for each count and the middle term of four years for each firearm-use enhancement, and ordered all terms to be served consecutively. Defendant contends the imposition of the upper term for both counts, as well as the court's decision to impose consecutive sentences, violated his right under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution to a jury determination of all critical facts supporting a greater potential sentence. ( Cunningham v. California (2007) 549 U.S. 270 [166 L.Ed.2d 856, 127 S.Ct. 856]; People v. Black (2007) 41 Cal.4th 799 [62 Cal.Rptr.3d 569, 161 P.3d 1130].) As we explain, even if the trial court erred in imposing the upper term for one of the rape counts, any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
The indictment filed March 24, 1998, charged defendant with two counts of having wilfully and unlawfully, by means of force, violence and fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury to a person, . . . accomplish[ed] an act of sexual intercourse with and against the will of [L.R.], a female person not his wife in violation of section 261, subdivision (a)(2). The indictment further charged that in the commission of these crimes, defendant personally used a firearm, to wit, a HANDGUN, within the meaning of Penal Code sections 12022.5(a) and 1192.7(c)(8). The jury's verdict stated it found defendant had committed these crimes as charged in the indictment and that defendant did personally use a firearm in committing those crimes. At sentencing, the trial court explained its decision to impose the upper term for both rape counts and to have defendant serve the sentences consecutively rather than concurrently: I do find that the two [rape] counts were committed at separate times and places, one on the kitchen table at the defendant's house and one several hours apart in a vehicle, in a car, with the victim's six-month-old child in the backseat. Between those times, the defendant had ample time to reflect and to cease his behavior, which he did not. I, therefore, find that the two rapes were committed on separate occasions, for separate purposes, within the meaning of Penal Code Section 667.6, subdivision (d), and [former rule 426(a)(2) of the California Rules of Court]. There were also separate threats of violence. I also make the further finding that as to each separate count of rape, the victim was not raped for sexual reasons, but for purposes of control and abuse to prevent her retaliation or reporting of the events and to intimidate and to sadistically brutalize her. While these two rapes did occur during a continuous course of conduct amounting to the kidnapping, which is a special circumstance attached to Count I, they were separate acts with separate intents. Therefore, the Court chooses to impose sentence under [section 667.6, subdivision (d) which, at the time of sentencing, permitted full-term consecutive sentencing for enumerated sex crimes].[ [12] ] As to [the rape in the kitchen [13] ], the Court chooses to impose the upper term of eight years for these reasons: The victim was vulnerable. She was in fear for her life. She was unable to resist. She had been accompanied by and separated from her husband [ sic ] and her three children. Secondly, the defendant's criminal background is appalling and shows a history and pattern of increasingly serious and violent conduct. Third, the acts showed planning and premeditation. The defendant took the trouble to isolate the victim from her husband [ sic ] and children, and he took her from behind to demean and debase her. I find absolutely no mitigating circumstances, and for that reason, I will impose the upper term of eight years. To that term, I will add the mid term of four years for the use of the gun. I don't think the use of the gun in connection with this rape was particularly aggravated, although it was used as a means of coercion and control. The trial court's reasons for sentencing defendant to an upper, consecutive term for count II, the rape in the car, were almost identical: the vulnerability of the victim, her fear that he would hurt her or her child, defendant's planning and premeditation, and his acts to isolate his victim. For this count, however, the court did not mention defendant's criminal history.
(15) The United States Supreme Court recently found California's determinate sentencing law (DSL) failed in some respects to accord criminal defendants their Sixth Amendment right to a jury determination of all critical facts supporting an enhanced sentence. As the high court explained: Under California's DSL, an upper term sentence may be imposed only when the trial judge finds an aggravating circumstance. [Citation.] An element of the charged offense, essential to a jury's determination of guilt, or admitted in a defendant's guilty plea, does not qualify as such a circumstance. [Citation.] Instead, aggravating circumstances depend on facts found discretely and solely by the judge. In accord with Blakely [ v. Washington (2004) 542 U.S. 296 [159 L.Ed.2d 403, 124 S.Ct. 2531]], therefore, the middle term prescribed in California's statutes, not the upper term, is the relevant statutory maximum. 542 U.S., at 303 [124 S.Ct. 2531] (`[T]he statutory maximum for Apprendi purposes is the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant.' (emphasis in original)). Because circumstances in aggravation are found by the judge, not the jury, and need only be established by a preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt, [citation], the DSL violates Apprendi's bright-line rule: Except for a prior conviction, `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.' ( Cunningham v. California, supra, 549 U.S. at p. ___ [127 S.Ct. at p. 868], quoting Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) 530 U.S. 466, 490 [147 L.Ed.2d 435, 120 S.Ct. 2348], second italics added.) (16) In People v. Black, supra, 41 Cal.4th 799, we determined thateven under Cunningham  so long as a defendant is eligible for the upper term by virtue of facts that have been established consistently with Sixth Amendment principles, the federal Constitution permits the trial court to rely upon any number of aggravating circumstances in exercising its discretion to select the appropriate term by balancing aggravating and mitigating circumstances, regardless of whether the facts underlying those circumstances have been found to be true by a jury. `Judicial factfinding in the course of selecting a sentence within the authorized range does not implicate the indictment, jury-trial, and reasonable-doubt components of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.' ( Harris v. United States (2002) 536 U.S. 545, 558 [153 L.Ed.2d 524, 122 S.Ct. 2406].) Facts considered by trial courts in exercising their discretion within the statutory range of punishment authorized for a crime `have been the traditional domain of judges; they have not been alleged in the indictment or proved beyond a reasonable doubt. There is no reason to believe that those who framed the Fifth and Sixth Amendments would have thought of them as the elements of the crime.' ( Id. at p. 813.) We also reiterated that prior convictions were excepted from the rule of Apprendi / Blakely / Cunningham ( Black, at p. 818; Blakely v. Washington, supra, 542 U.S. at p. 301) and in fact found the sentencing court in Black did not err by relying in part on the defendant's prior felony convictions to sentence him to the upper term. We note at the outset that the rules set forth in Cunningham v. California, supra, 549 U.S. ___ [127 S.Ct. 856], and People v. Black, supra, 41 Cal.4th 799, apply to this case because it was pending on appeal when those decisions were made. ( People v. Amons (2005) 125 Cal.App.4th 855, 863 [22 Cal.Rptr.3d 908].) The sentences for the two rape counts require different analyses. Taking the second crime firstcount III, the rape of L.R. in the kitchenthe trial court justified its sentence choice of the upper term in part by mentioning that the defendant's criminal background is appalling and shows a history and pattern of increasingly serious and violent conduct. This evidence was presented in the penalty phase as aggravating evidence and was also available to the trial court from the probation report, which it had read. That report indicated that defendant suffered an uninterrupted history of criminal behavior beginning in 1985, when at the age of 19 he was convicted of receiving stolen property. (§ 496.) Paroled in March 1987, he was convicted less than one year later, in August 1988, of misdemeanor false imprisonment (§ 236) and sentenced to one year in jail. In July 1989, having apparently been released from county jail, he was convicted again, this time of felony possession of a controlled substance while armed with a firearm (Health & Saf. Code, § 11350, subd. (a); Pen. Code, § 12020, subd. (a)). In February 1990, he was convicted of forgery (§ 470), a felony, and sentenced to four years in prison. He was paroled approximately two years later in 1992, but had his parole revoked at least four times in the next four years before finally being discharged from parole in 1997, just a few months before he tortured and murdered Uwe Durbin and raped L.R. As in People v. Black , we conclude this evidence of defendant's criminal history establishes an aggravating circumstance that independently satisfies the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The United States Supreme Court consistently has stated that the right to a jury trial does not apply to the fact of a prior conviction. [Citations.] `[R]ecidivism . . . is a traditional, if not the most traditional, basis for a sentencing court's increasing an offender's sentence.' ( People v. Black, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 818.) As we explained in Black, rule 4.421(b)(2) of the California Rules of Court provides that it is a circumstance in aggravation if a defendant's prior convictions as an adult . . . are numerous or of increasing seriousness. Defendant's criminal history adequately proves this point: He began his young adult life with a felony conviction for receiving stolen property, followed immediately by a misdemeanor false imprisonment, then a drug case with a firearm, then a felony forgery with multiple parole violations. It appears that never during all this time did defendant avoid contact with the criminal justice system for more than one year. We conclude the evidence of his criminal history, including his recidivism, satisfies the Sixth Amendment. ( Black, at pp. 818-820.) The trial court thus did not err in sentencing him to the upper term for count III. The trial court's decision to sentence defendant to the upper term for count II, the rape in the car, requires a somewhat different analysis because in choosing the upper term the court did not state it was relying on defendant's criminal history. The sentencing court's failure expressly to cite defendant's criminal history as an aggravating factor when sentencing for this crime arguably should make no difference, for his criminal history was the same for both rapes. We need not reach the question of error, however, because even assuming the court erred in sentencing defendant to the upper term on this count, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. ( People v. Sandoval (2007) 41 Cal.4th 825, 838 [62 Cal.Rptr.3d 588, 161 P.3d 1146]; Chapman v. California, supra, 386 U.S. at p. 24.) To determine whether such error is harmless, we ask whether, if the question of the existence of an aggravating circumstance or circumstances had been submitted to the jury, the jury's verdict would have authorized the upper term sentence. ( Sandoval, at p. 838.) More precisely, we must ask whether we can conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the jury, applying the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard, unquestionably would have found true at least a single aggravating circumstance had it been submitted to the jury. ( Id. at p. 839.) Applying that standard here, we conclude any possible Cunningham / Black error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In sentencing defendant to an upper term for count II, the trial court mentioned the vulnerability of the victim, her fear that he would hurt her or her child, defendant's planning and premeditation, and his acts to isolate his victim. The first of these factors the victim's vulnerabilitycorresponds to rule 4.421(a)(3) of the California Rules of Court. L.R. testified defendant took her by car to an isolated place with her six-month-old baby in the car. Her other two children and their father, Michael Durbin, were being held at gunpoint in defendant's house. L.R. knew defendant had already shot Uwe Durbin and that his confederates were torturing and would probably kill him. She understandably testified she was afraid for her life. Defendant had every incentive to dispute this evidence, but his only evidence was his own pretrial statement to police denying that he raped L.R. Other than this out-of-court statement, he presented no evidence suggesting L.R. testified untruthfully. Indeed, the evidence that defendant had, more than once, sexually assaulted his previous fiancée, K.K., tended to support L.R.'s credibility. The jury was thus presented with a stark choice, and it chose to believe L.R., convicting defendant of rape. Indeed, it convicted defendant of all charges, disbelieving his every denial. Under these circumstances, had the issue of L.R.'s vulnerability or her isolation been tendered to the jury, we conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury, applying the same standard, would have sustained the allegation. Accordingly, the Cunningham/Black error with respect to count II was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (17) Finally, defendant contends the trial court violated his Sixth Amendment rights by sentencing him to serve his sentences consecutively, relying on factors that he neither admitted nor were found true by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Because the Cunningham / Black rule does not apply to the sentencing choice to impose consecutive rather than concurrent sentences ( People v. Black, supra, 41 Cal.4th at pp. 820-823), we reject this contention.