Calif justices uphold judges' broad sentencing leeway

Bakersfield Californian ^ | 6/20/05 | AP

[NormsRevenge]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The California Supreme Court upheld state sentencing guidelines Monday amid challenges judges were unconstitutionally justifying steeper sentences based on elements not considered by the jury.

Leaving intact the sentencing guidelines avoided what might have been the resentencing of thousands of prisoners. The decision was the third this year by California's justices interpreting new precedent established by the U.S. Supreme Court involving a hodgepodge of topics including sentencing, executing the mentally retarded and limiting the amount of damages jurors could award to punish business for egregious conduct in civil lawsuits.

Ruling 6-1 Monday, the justices said California's sentencing guidelines, which allow judges to issue three sentences for many crimes, did not give judges too much power over the defendant or the jury. The case was forced on the justices after California's lower courts issued conflicting rulings on how to apply recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent that had invalidated federal sentencing rules.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer welcomed the ruling upholding sentencing laws state lawmakers imposed in 1977.

"The court's important ruling validates a 28-year sentencing structure that has served well the criminal justice system and, more importantly, public safety," Lockyer said.

The case concerned a Tulare County child molester who challenged a 16-year term, the highest of three choices possible, for sexually molesting his preteen stepdaughter. The judge chose the high term instead of the middle range of 12 years or the lower term of six years on grounds that defendant Kevin Black abused his position of trust with the stepdaughter and that he physically and emotionally injured her.

The court upheld that sentence, and another for 30 years imposed for other sexual misconduct on the stepdaughter and one of her friends. Among other things, the justices said the judge, when issuing the highest term, did not base his sentence on facts the jury did not find.

That is an important finding. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional to require judges to increase sentences based on facts not decided by a jury, such as adding more years based on the amount of drugs being sold even though a jury never determined that amount. That would violate a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, the nation's top court ruled.

But to prevent retrying perhaps thousands of defendants, the U.S. Supreme Court changed course this year and said judges could increase terms based on facts not found by a jury on the condition that judges were no longer obligated to do so.

Given that, California's chief justice, Ronald M. George, said California's sentencing scheme comported with precedent from the nation's top court. George said California's law was constitutional because the sentencing judge had some leeway on whether to max out a defendant.

"The level of discretion available to a California judge in selecting which of the three available terms to impose appears comparable to the level of discretion that the high court has chosen to permit federal judges," George ruled.

Black's attorney, Eileen Kotler, and dissenting Justice Joyce Kennard said the state's sentencing rules are unconstitutional because they require judges to increase sentences above the middle term based on the "seriousness" of the offense - a subjective element - even if a jury did not declare the crime was of a serious nature.

"I do not think they wanted to change the sentencing scheme so they found a way to uphold it," Kotler said.

The case is People v. Black, S126182.

[Still Thinking]

"It would be too much trouble" -- that is their legal reasoning on this??