California Court Upholds Prosecution’s Right to Seek High Term Prison Sentences Post-Cunningham
In a published ruling, the Third District California Court of Appeal ruled today that prosecutors in California are legally entitled to allege aggravating factors in a charging document. The decision’s practical effect is that California prosecutors may legally seek high term prison sentences, even after the Supreme Court’s Cunningham ruling, which held that the aggravating factors supporting high term sentences must be found by juries.
Defense attorneys had argued that there is no statutory authority allowing prosecutors to allege aggravating factors in an information (a felony charging document). The court rejected that argument. It also ruled that aggravating factors need not be proved at a preliminary hearing, and are thus not subject to being stricken on a Penal Code 995 motion.
Here is my favorite line from today’s decision:
The law is not a game of “gotcha” that should be played to unfairly penalize the prosecution and frustrate the Legislature’s intent to better protect public safety by providing for the possible imposition of an upper term.
(All emphasis in this post is mine.)
To see why this is my favorite line, let me quote to you the opening sentence of a legal brief I have recently filed in several Compton courtrooms regarding this same issue:
In this demurrer, the defense attempts to play “gotcha” with the prosecution on technical issues of pleading, arguing that a procedure mandated by the Supreme Court of the United States is not available under California law.
Yes, it’s a coincidence. The Third District Court of Appeal is based in Sacramento. Nobody there ever saw my brief.
It’s actually a fairly obvious observation. Defense attorneys ran off to the Supreme Court demanding that we prove aggravating factors to a jury — and when they won, they trotted back here and argued to local judges that California law doesn’t permit that to happen.
If that isn’t playing “gotcha,” I don’t know what is.
Still, as I like to say: great minds think alike . . . and sometimes, great minds think like mine.
(H/t: Jessica G.)
P.S. It’s nice to see this analysis in a published ruling, which carries a little more weight than my little brief. After all, they’re the judges. I’m just the law-talkin’ guy.
Best. Simpsons reference. Ever.
Rick Wilcox (71646f) — 3/28/2007 @ 5:53 pm“nobody there ever saw my brief.”
assistant devil's advocate (7d3409) — 3/28/2007 @ 6:30 pmyou never know. shame he didn’t give you a footnote attribution.
Meanwhile, prosecutors play “gottcha” with defendants. I don’t care who started it. I want it to end. Now.
Our legal system is being destroyed by a bunch of Parents and Children; we need to restrict lawyering (on all three sides) to Adults. (Sorry, channeling the 1970’s, or was it the 1960’s.)
htom (412a17) — 3/28/2007 @ 7:51 pmYay.
Some people really need the aggravated term based on the facts of the crime. I’m glad to see this opinion from the Third.
–JRM
JRM (355c21) — 3/28/2007 @ 8:12 pmIndeed they may; but they don’t need it from unanswerable allegations (at least as I understand this; the allegations are either added after the trial, or without timely notice to the defense.)
htom (412a17) — 3/28/2007 @ 9:23 pm“… prosecutors in California are legally entitled to allege aggravating factors in a charging document.”
Emphasis mine. Sounds pretty early in the process to me, htom.
LarryD (336e87) — 3/29/2007 @ 7:57 amIn the instant case, the first witness during the trial had already begun to testify when the amendments were made. Kind of late for additions, don’t you think? It looks to me like there is no post-trial sentencing trial (at least for most crimes), so allegations — which appear to be able to be made at any time — can be made which cannot be argued. You want to live in that society when you’re on trial for something you didn’t do, and the prosecutor starts hanging a bunch of aggrivating circumstances that you also didn’t do, between when the jury inexpicably says “Guilty” and the judge says “Life” … it would be better to object now, than then, when you’d be accused of self-interest.
htom (412a17) — 3/29/2007 @ 11:57 amhtom,
You simply have no idea what you’re talking about.
In the instant case, the defendant knew he faced a high-term sentence if aggravating factors set forth in a probation report were found by the judge. After his trial started, the Supreme Court decided that such factors must be decided by a jury, so the prosecutor moved to add them to the charging document so they could be proved to the jury.
That’s it.
In your world, every prosecution is of an innocent person, and prosecutors “start[] hanging a bunch of aggrivating [sic] circumstances” on defendants for no reason . . . willy-nilly, in virtually any given case. But your world has nothing to do with the world I know, and you are clearly 100% ignorant of the nature of the process you are discussing.
Patterico (04465c) — 3/29/2007 @ 9:30 pm