Opinion ID: 2570337
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: points raised by majority

Text: According to the majority, the first question in determining the constitutionality of California's sentencing scheme is whether a trial judge's decision to impose an upper term sentence under the California determinate sentencing law involves the type of judicial factfinding that traditionally has been performed by a judge in the context of exercising sentencing discretion or whether it instead involves the type of factfinding that traditionally has been exercised by juries in the context of determining whether the elements of an offense have been proved. (Maj. opn., ante, 29 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 749-50, 113 P.3d at p. 542.) That, in my view, is not the question at all. As framed by the high court in Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, the determinative question is whether the sentencing scheme allows the trial court, relying on offense-based facts found by the court, to impose a punishment greater than that permitted under the facts found by the jury. Nothing in the high court's majority opinions in Apprendi, Blakely, and Booker suggests that the constitutionality of a state's sentencing scheme turns on whether, in the words of the majority here, it involves the type of factfinding that traditionally has been performed by a judge. (Maj. opn., ante, 29 Cal. Rptr.3d at p. 749, 113 P.3d at p. 542.) What is the source for the majority's test? Perhaps the majority has looked to Justice O'Connor's dissenting opinion in Apprendi, which contained this observation: When a State takes a fact that has always been considered by sentencing courts to bear on punishment, and dictates the precise weight that a court should give that fact in setting a defendant's sentence, the relevant fact need not be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.... ( Apprendi, supra, 530 U.S. at p. 535, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (dis. opn. of O'Connor, J.), italics added.) Or perhaps the majority has taken its cue from Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion in Booker, which as Justice Stevens's majority opinion in Booker noted, relied on traditional judicial authority to increase sentences to take account of any unusual blameworthiness in the manner employed in committing a crime to support its argument that the Federal Sentencing Guidelines did not violate the Sixth Amendment. ( Booker, supra, 543 U.S. at p. 235, 125 S.Ct. at p. 751.) But the Booker majority rejected this approach, concluding that [t]his tradition ... does not provide a sound guide to enforcement of the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial in today's world. ( Ibid. ) Hard as it tries, the majority here cannot point to any significant differences between California's sentencing law and the Washington sentencing scheme that the high court invalidated in Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531. The majority states that [u]nder the California scheme, a judge is free to base an upper term sentence on any aggravating factor that the judge deems significant.... (Maj. opn., ante, 29 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 751, 113 P.3d at p. 543.) It explains: The Legislature did not identify all of the particular facts that could justify the upper term. Instead, it afforded the sentencing judge the discretion to decide, with the guidance of rules and statutes, whether the facts of the case and the history of the defendant justify the higher sentence. (Maj. opn., ante, 29 Cal. Rptr.3d at p. 752, 113 P.3d at p. 544.) But that can also be said of the State of Washington's sentencing scheme. ( Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. at p. 299, 124 S.Ct. at p. 2535 [The Washington law lists aggravating factors that justify [an increased sentence], which it recites to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.].) The majority considers it significant that under California law, [t]he judge's discretion to identify aggravating factors in a case is guided by the requirement that they be `reasonably related to the decision being made.' (Maj. opn., ante, 29 Cal. Rptr.3d at p. 751, 113 P.3d at pp. 543-44.) But that is also true of Washington's sentencing law: A sentencing scheme that would allow a trial court to base its sentence on facts not reasonably related to the decision being made would be so unfair as to violate constitutionally guaranteed principles of due process. The majority also notes that as a historical matter California's adoption of the determinate sentencing law reduced the length of potential sentences for most crimes, rather than increasing them. (Maj. opn., ante, 29 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 751, 113 P.3d at p. 544.) This aspect of our sentencing law does not differ significantly from the Washington sentencing scheme. As Justice O'Connor's dissenting opinion in Blakely pointed out: The [Washington] Act neither increased any of the statutory sentencing ranges ... nor reclassified any offenses. ( Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. at p. 316, 124 S.Ct. at p. 2544.) The Blakely majority voiced no disagreement with that observation. The majority here points out that California law requires sentence enhancements to be determined by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. (Maj. opn., ante, 29 Cal. Rptr.3d at p. 753, 113 P.3d at p. 545.) Notable by its absence, however, is any claim by the majority that this aspect differentiates our sentencing law from the State of Washington's sentencing scheme held unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. Similar enhancements may well have existed under the Washington law. (See Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. at p. 299, 124 S.Ct. at p. 2535 [noting that the standard range for the defendant in Blakely was based in part on a 36-month firearm enhancement].) In invalidating the Washington law, the United States Supreme Court did not rely on the presence or absence of sentence enhancements. The only difference the majority can point to between California's sentencing law and that of the State of Washington held unconstitutional in Blakely, supra, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, is this: Under the invalidated Washington law a sentence outside the standard range was an `exceptional sentence' that must be justified by `substantial and compelling reasons,' whereas California law imposes no such requirement. (Maj. opn., ante, 29 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 753, 113 P.3d at p. 546, italics omitted.) Differently put, the invalidated Washington law limited to a greater extent, compared to California law, the number of instances in which Washington trial courts could impose a sentence beyond the prescribed statutory maximum. Yet nothing in Blakely suggests that the United States Supreme Court would have found the Washington sentencing scheme constitutional if it had permitted trial courts to exceed the standard sentencing range more often. Rather, the high court invalidated the Washington sentencing law because (1) under that scheme the trial court rather than the jury made the findings necessary to justify a sentence outside the standard range, and (2) because those court findings could be established by a preponderance of the evidence rather than by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. California's sentencing scheme shares these deficiencies with the Washington law that the high court in Blakely found violative of a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to jury trial.