Supreme Court strikes down California’s “determinate sentencing law”
The Supreme Court struck down California's determinate sentencing law in a 6-3 opinion in Cunningham v. California, No. 05-6551 on January 22, 2007. The Court ruled that California’s determinate sentencing law (DSL) is unconstitutional to the extent that it permits judges to find facts that trigger sentences longer than those authorized by the jury’s verdict. This decision only affects California’s DSL sentencing system and does not affect sentencing in other states, as least directly, or in the federal system.
However, Cunningham is the most recent in its series of decisions examining sentencing practices in light of the Sixth Amendment. Currently, the Court is considering briefs and will hear oral argument in Claiborne v. United States, No 06-5618 and Rita v. United States, No. 06-5754. Those cases address to what extent the federal Sentencing Guidelines should be presumed to generate sentences considered “reasonable” on appeal. FAMM is participating in those cases with an amicus (friend of the Court) brief. You can read our brief here.
Case and sentence facts
John Cunningham was tried and convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a minor. At sentencing, the judge found facts that caused him to increase Cunningham’s presumptive sentence of 12 years to the aggravated sentence of 16 years. California's DSL is structured so that a conviction triggers the middle of three distinct sentences. In the case of a conviction for continuous sexual abuse, the middle sentence is 12 years. The judge must impose that sentence unless the judge finds mitigating facts that warrant the bottom sentence of six years or aggravating facts that merit the top sentence of 16 years. Importantly, aggravating facts must be different from the facts used to establish the conviction. Under the DSL, the judge alone finds the facts that increase a sentence beyond the 12-year sentence authorized by the jury verdict.
The Court found the DSL was identical in important respects to the systems that the Court struck down in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004) and United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). They concluded that these systems violate the Sixth Amendment because they allowed the judge to increase sentences beyond those permitted by the conviction. “Because the DSL allocates to judges sole authority to find facts on which the imposition of an upper term sentence turns, the system violates the Sixth Amendment,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority.
The Supreme Court rejected California’s argument that because its judges exercise broad discretion to decide the facts that aggravate a sentence, the system is not unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had rejected a similar argument in Blakely. The point is, the Court said, that a judge, using facts that have not been found beyond a reasonable doubt by the jury, may increase a sentence beyond that called for by the jury’s verdict. The fact-finding that elevates the sentence from 12 years to 16 years is committed by the Sixth Amendment to the jury, using a beyond a reasonable doubt standard, not the judge, using a preponderance of the evidence standard.
The Court left to the lawmakers in California the task of drafting a system that complies with the Sixth Amendment.
Justices Breyer, Kennedy and Alito dissented from the opinion.
Want more information?
To read more about the Cunningham decision and other cases about sentencing, visit http://sentencing.typepad.com and www.scotusblog.com as well as www.fedcrimlaw.com, home of Punch & Jurist. Click these links to download the Cunningham syllabus and opinion and Judge Alito's dissent (in Adobe pdf format.)