In People v. Lynch, a divided Supreme Court today holds a sentence that is erroneous under retroactive application of 2021 legislation is prejudicial unless the error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The legislation, Senate Bill 567, precludes imposition of the highest of three possible sentencing terms unless a trier of fact has found, or the defendant has stipulated to, aggravating circumstances.
The court’s opinion by Justice Carol Corrigan— for herself and Justices Goodwin Liu, Joshua Groban, and Kelli Evans — rejects the defendant’s argument that reversal should be automatic, but it says that a sentence imposed under pre-SB 567 law must be reversed “unless the reviewing court concludes beyond a reasonable doubt that a jury, applying that same standard, would have found true all of the aggravating facts upon which the court relied to conclude the upper term was justified, or that those facts were otherwise proved true in compliance with the current statute.” (Emphasis added.) Also, “the record must clearly indicate that the court would have found an upper term justified had it been aware of its more limited discretion.” The court reasons that, under the old law, “[t]he trial court’s substitution of its own factfinding for that of a jury, and its application of a lower standard of proof, are not mere state statutory errors. They are errors that run counter to the high court’s interpretation of the federal constitution.”
Justice Leondra Kruger concurs and dissents in an opinion signed by Justice Martin Jenkins. She agrees with the bottom line that the defendant is entitled to new sentencing proceedings (albeit under a more forgiving standard of review than the majority employs), but asserts that “the majority goes too far in holding that a violation of the new statutory right to a jury finding on each and every aggravating fact is also, perforce, a violation of the federal Constitution.” (Emphasis added.) Justice Kruger says that although the findings necessary to allow imposition of the highest term now must be made by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, that “is because the Legislature has chosen to impose this requirement as a matter of state law; it is not because the Constitution demands it.”
While the majority holds that “under the current statute a Sixth Amendment violation occurs when the trial court relies on unproven aggravating facts to impose an upper term sentence, even if some other aggravating facts relied on have been properly established,” Justice Kruger says, “As long as a single aggravating circumstance would have been found true by the jury or admitted to by the defendant, the Sixth Amendment is satisfied.”
Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero dissents. She believes that “a trial court errs under the federal Constitution only if it imposes an upper term sentence and no aggravating facts have been proved in accordance with the Sixth Amendment [right to a jury trial].” (Emphasis added.) Unlike the majority and Justices Kruger and Jenkins, the Chief Justice concludes reversal is improper because “it was not reasonably probable the court would have selected a lesser sentence if it had applied the current [sentencing law].”
The court reverses the partially divided Third District Court of Appeal unpublished opinion. Additionally, it disapproves the First District, Division One opinion in People v. Hall (2023) 97 Cal.App.5th 1084, the Second District, Division Six, opinion in People v. Ruiz (2023) 97 Cal.App.5th 1068, the Fifth District decisions in People v. Falcon (2023) 92 Cal.App.5th 911 and People v. Dunn (2022) 81 Cal.App.5th 394, the Fourth District, Division Two, opinions in People v. Butler (2023) 89 Cal.App.5th 953 and People v. Lewis (2023) 88 Cal.App.5th 1125, the First District, Division Three, decisions in People v. Ross (2022) 86 Cal.App.5th 1346 and People v. Flores (2022) 75 Cal.App.5th 495, the Third District’s opinion in People v. Zabelle (2022) 80 Cal.App.5th 1098, and the Fourth District, Division One, decision in People v. Lopez (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 459.
Hall, Ruiz, Falcon, Butler, Lewis, Ross, and Dunn, are grant-and-holds for today’s opinion. The court denied a depublication request in Flores (there was no petition for review) with Justice Liu filing a concurring statement. (See here.)