Court Opinion

ID: 9723121
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:02:59.280625+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:44.899075
License: Public Domain

REYNOSO, J.
I concur in the results limited to these facts. By a rational constitutional analysis one may conclude that basic due process demands a beyond reasonable doubt standard before a person is incarcerated for an extra year. After all, no right is more precious than one’s freedom. But, as the majority indicate, the constitutional slate is not clean.
I cannot join in the court’s general assumption that equal protection (or due process) contentions will not lie under any circumstances. The legislative scheme contemplates that certain facts must be pled and proved for enhancement purposes. The reasons for aggravation cannot be of such breadth as to permit by indirection what the Legislature has not permitted. I would hold unenforceable those portions of the Rules of Court which appear to permit such a result.
The Rules of Court disturb me in a related regard. The standard of proof (preponderance) may be applied to factors so vague that no standard is readily perceived. Rules of Court (rules 421 and 423) appear to permit practically unbridled discretion in the trial judge to impose a maximum or minimum term. That cannot be. More predictability must be engrafted upon the sentencing process. The whole motivating concept behind recent legislative sentencing reforms has been to structure fairness and predictability in our sentencing scheme.
Appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied December 13, 1978. Bird, C. J., Tobriner, J., and Manuel, J., did not participate therein. Taylor, J.,* Elkington, J.,* and Kane, J.,* participated therein.

Assigned by the Chairperson of the Judicial Council.