Opinion ID: 2570337
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: application of high court's recent trilogy of sentencing decisions to california's sentencing scheme

Text: California law prohibits a trial court from sentencing a defendant to the upper term unless it finds the existence of one or more aggravating circumstances. (§ 1170, subd. (b).) Absent such findings, the middle term is the maximum sentence it may impose. Thus, under our system, the statutory maximum, that is, the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict  ( Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. at p. 303, 124 S.Ct. at p. 2537), is the middle term of imprisonment. Insofar as California law permits a trial judge to impose a sentence greater than the statutory maximum, based on facts not found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, it violates the Sixth Amendment to the federal Constitution, as construed in Apprendi, supra, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435, Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, and Booker, supra, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738. This does not mean that a trial court's upper term sentence always violates a defendant's jury trial right. If any aspect of the defendant's prior criminal history is an aggravating circumstance, if the jury makes special findings of aggravating facts that justify imposition of the upper term, if the defendant admits the existence of aggravating facts, or if the defendant waives the right to jury trial, the court may impose the upper term without violating the defendant's constitutional rights. But under Apprendi, supra, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435, Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, and Booker, supra, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, absent waiver of the right to jury trial, the trial court may not impose the upper term, thereby exceeding the statutory maximum, when the decision is based solely on (1) offense-based facts that (2) are not admitted by the defendant and (3) are not found by a jury. In this situation  that is, when the trial court rather than the jury has acted as the trier of fact in determining the existence of one or more offense-based aggravating facts necessary to sustain imposition of an upper term  California's sentencing scheme violates the Sixth Amendment's right to a jury trial. Here, no violation of the Sixth Amendment occurred, for two reasons: First, the jury found true special allegations, pertaining to probation eligibility, that defendant used force or fear in committing the section 288.5 violation and had engaged in substantial sexual conduct with the victim (§ 1203.066, subd. (a)(1), (8)). These jury findings were sufficient to support the trial court's imposition of the upper term, even though those findings were made for a different purpose, that of determining probation eligibility. Thus, here the jury found, beyond a reasonable doubt, the existence of facts sufficient to permit the trial court to exceed the middle term in sentencing defendant. Second, in selecting the upper term the trial court relied on the aggravating circumstance that defendant's prior convictions ... are numerous or of increasing seriousness. As explained earlier, the United States Supreme Court has held that the Sixth Amendment does not require a jury trial on facts pertaining to a defendant's prior criminal history. Under California law, the existence of a single aggravating circumstance is sufficient to support imposition of an upper term. (§ 1170, subd. (b).) In this case, the jury's findings pertaining to defendant's probation eligibility, and the trial court's findings pertaining to defendant's criminal record, were each sufficient to satisfy this statutory requirement, thereby making the upper term the statutory maximum for the offense. (See Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. at pp. 303-304, 124 S.Ct. at p. 2537 [defining statutory maximum as the maximum sentence a trial court may impose without additional findings of offense-based facts].) Once the upper term became the statutory maximum in this manner, defendant's right to jury trial under the federal Constitution's Sixth Amendment was satisfied, and the trial court on its own properly could  and did  make additional findings of offense-based aggravating circumstances in support of its discretionary sentence choice to impose the upper term. Thus, under the high court's decisions in Apprendi, supra, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435, Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, and Booker, supra, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, the trial court here did not violate defendant's Sixth Amendment right to jury trial when it sentenced him to the upper term.