In People v. Wiley, the Supreme Court yesterday held the Sixth Amendment guaranteed a defendant a jury trial on certain facts that were the basis for imposing an upper term sentence for making a criminal threat. The sentencing court, without a jury, had relied on the defendant’s prior convictions, his poor performance on probation, and the increasing seriousness of the charges.
The court’s opinion by Justice Carol Corrigan concludes “the bare fact of a prior conviction and its elements” don’t require a jury finding, but the defendant did have the federal constitutional right to have a jury decide beyond a reasonable doubt “whether the particular details of a defendant’s criminal history establish an unsatisfactory probation performance or demonstrate convictions of increasing seriousness, before a trial court can rely on those facts to justify an upper term sentence.” Indeed, the court said, “any fact, beyond the bare fact of a prior conviction, that exposes a defendant to harsher punishment, must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, unless the defendant stipulates to its truth or waives a jury trial.”
The opinion states that the result is dictated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Erlinger v. United States (2024) 602 U.S. 821, which also requires overruling two of the court’s opinions — People v. Towne (2008) 44 Cal.4th 63 and People v. Black (2007) 41 Cal.4th 799.
The court also concluded that the denial of a jury trial was prejudicial and required reversal because the denial was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Justice Leondra Kruger — joined by Justice Martin Jenkins — separately concurs, reprising her concurring and dissenting opinion in People v. Lynch (2024) 16 Cal.5th 730 (see here). She asserts the denial of a jury trial was not a constitutional error, but a statutory violation.
The court reversed and disapproved the published opinion of the First District, Division Four, which preceded Erlinger and which relied on the now-overruled Towne and Black opinions. The court also disapproved the First District, Division One, decision in People v. Morgan (2024) 103 Cal.App.5th 488, the Third District decision in People v. Pantaleon (2023), and the First District, Division Three, decision in People v. Ross (2022) 86 Cal.App.5th 1346.
The Supreme Court granted review in Morgan to decide another issue. (See here.) It denied review in Pantaleon. Ross was a grant-and-hold for the prejudicial-sentencing-error decision in Lynch and review was dismissed after the Lynch opinion issued.
