BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 1202 (Leno) - Sentencing
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|Version: March 28, 2016 |Policy Vote: PUB. S. 4 - 1 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
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|Hearing Date: May 2, 2016 |Consultant: Jolie Onodera |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: SB 1202 would provide that aggravating facts relied
upon by the court to impose an upper term sentence or
enhancement must be presented to the jury and found to be true
beyond a reasonable doubt. This bill requires the trial of all
facts pled in aggravation of sentence to be bifurcated, as
specified.
Fiscal
Impact:
Bifurcated trials : Potentially major increase in ongoing
costs to the state trial courts in the millions of dollars
(General Fund*) annually to plead and prove aggravating facts
in bifurcated trials. To the extent 25 percent to 50 percent
of an estimated 5,000 felony trials involving a fact alleged
in aggravation takes an average of one court day (8 hours),
assuming an hourly court cost of $837, annual costs could
range between $8.4 million to $16.7 million. To the extent the
number and duration of bifurcated trials is greater or less
SB 1202 (Leno) Page 1 of
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than assumed above, actual costs would be adjusted
accordingly.
State prisons : Unquantifiable, but potentially significant
increases or decreases in future state prison costs (General
Fund) to the extent this measure results in longer or shorter
prison terms than imposed under the existing determinate
sentencing law. Even a minor change to resulting sentences
drives significant costs or savings, given the large base of
offenders and the significant unit cost to incarcerate an
offender.
County jails : Potentially significant increases or decreases
in local jail costs (Local Funds) to the extent this measure
results in longer or shorter felony jail terms as a result of
bifurcated trials.
*Trial Court Trust Fund
Background: California's existing sentencing procedures were initially
established by SB 40 (Romero) Chapter 3/2007 and SB 150 (Wright)
Chapter 171/2009, that sought to conform the state's determinate
sentencing laws to the findings in Cunningham v. California
(2007) 549 U.S. 270. The Cunningham decision found a portion of
California's determinate sentencing laws unconstitutional on the
grounds that they violated an individual's right to a jury
trial.
The former version of the state's basic determinate sentencing
statute provided that, for crimes punishable by three possible
terms, the court had to impose the middle term of imprisonment
unless it found circumstances in aggravation or mitigation. If
the court found that there were aggravating or mitigating
circumstances, it could impose an upper or lower term.
However, in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court held upper term
sentencing, under California's determinate sentencing law,
invalid under the Sixth Amendment. In Apprendi v. New Jersey
(2000) 530 U.S. 466, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the
constitutional right to a jury trial proscribes a sentencing
scheme that allows a judge to impose a sentence above the
statutory maximum based on a fact, other than a prior
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conviction, not found by a jury or admitted by the defendant.
The U.S. Supreme Court clarified in Blakely v. Washington (2004)
542 U.S. 296, that in order to comport with the Sixth Amendment,
any fact (other than a prior conviction) that exposes a
defendant to a sentence beyond the relevant statutory maximum
must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt or admitted by
the defendant.
Subsequently, in the Cunningham decision, the U.S. Supreme Court
held that California's determinate sentencing law violated
Blakely because the middle term was the statutory maximum for
the crime, but the law allowed the court to impose the upper
term based on circumstances in aggravation found by the court by
a preponderance of the evidence. The Court suggested this
problem could be corrected by either providing a jury trial on
the sentencing issue or by providing judicial discretion to
impose the higher term without additional findings of fact.
In light of Cunningham, the Legislature chose the latter, and
enacted SB 40 (Romero) to fix the constitutional defect inherent
in the statute with regard to the term imposed for the crime.
Accordingly, under current law, the court is afforded discretion
to choose the appropriate term, based on the interests of
justice, from the three-term range provided as punishment for
the offense. Since the middle term is no longer the presumptive
term of imprisonment, the defendant has no right to a jury
trial, with proof beyond a reasonable doubt, on circumstances in
aggravation that would support the imposition of the upper term.
This bill would provide for the second option suggested by the
Court, and would require a jury to find aggravating facts to be
true.
Proposed Law:
This bill would revise the state's three-tier determinate
sentencing law by prohibiting imposition of the upper term of
imprisonment unless aggravating facts are presented and found to
be true by a jury in bifurcated trials. Specifically, this bill:
Makes a legislative declaration that, to ensure
proportionality in sentencing, upper terms should be reserved
for individual cases in which aggravating facts exist and have
been proven to be true.
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Provides the court shall not impose an upper term based on
aggravating facts unless the facts were presented to a jury
and the jury found the facts to be true.
Requires the court to state on the record at the time of
sentencing the specific facts in aggravation relied upon to
impose an upper term.
Provides that a fact pled in the indictment, information, or
accusatory pleading in aggravation of sentence cannot be used
as an aggravating factor in sentencing unless that fact has
been proven to the trier of fact or admitted by the defendant,
except that, in the case of jury trial, prior convictions that
have been pled as provided may be proven to the court to the
same extent as they were permitted to be proven to the court
prior to January 1, 2017.
Provides that whether to the jury or to the court, where
permitted for prior convictions or if a jury is waived, the
trial of all facts pled in aggravation of sentence shall be
bifurcated. During the first phase, the jury shall not be
informed of a fact alleged in aggravation of the sentence
unless that fact is otherwise admissible and relevant to the
merits of the criminal charge or enhancement and not
excluded pursuant to Section 352 of the Evidence Code. The
jury shall not be informed that a fact is alleged in
aggravation of the sentence until the beginning of the
second phase of the trial.
Related
Legislation: SB 1016 (Monning) 2016 would extend the sunset
from January 1, 2017, to January 1, 2022, on specified basic
sentencing provisions on the factors a court shall consider and
the procedure the court shall follow in choosing to impose a
lower, middle or upper term. SB 1016 is pending on the Suspense
File of this Committee.
Prior Legislation: AB 765 (Ammiano) 2013 would have prohibited
imposition of the upper term of imprisonment unless aggravating
facts were found to be true by a jury. This bill was held on the
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Suspense File of the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Staff
Comments: While over 200,000 felony cases are disposed of by
the judicial system each year, only a small percentage move to
trial. The most recent information available reflects data for
Fiscal Year (FY) 2013-14 from the 2015 Annual Court Statistics
Report, which indicates 6,630 cases, or 2.6 percent of felony
dispositions went to trial. To the extent the effects of
Proposition 47 (2014) are not fully reflected in the available
data for FY 2013-14, the number of felony trials prospectively
may, or may not, decrease. Assuming a 25 percent decline in the
number of felony trials would reduce the number of felony trials
to approximately 5,000 annually.
The percentage of felony trials that will require bifurcation is
unknown. To provide a general sense of costs, to the extent 25
percent to 50 percent of felony trials require bifurcation,
annual costs would range from $8.4 million to $16.7 million,
utilizing the hourly court cost of $837 and assuming an
additional day of court time (8 hours) would be required. Given
the numerous factors that cannot be known with certainty
(including the number of future felony trials each year, the
number of felony trials requiring bifurcation, and the potential
duration of the bifurcated trials), costs could be substantially
higher or lower.
Likewise, the fiscal impact resulting from changes to the terms
of incarceration in state prisons and local jails is
unquantifiable but potentially in the millions of dollars given
the number of defendants impacted and the significant unit costs
to incarcerate these individuals. Any costs or cost savings
cannot be determined with certainty. For example, data from the
CDCR report on upper term sentencing reflects over 8,000 inmates
flagged for imposition of an upper term sentence in 2014 (21.5
percent of determinate sentences). While a simple calculation of
a one percent increase or decrease to reported upper term
sentences would seem to indicate a cost or savings of over $2.3
million in any one year, the actual impact to sentencing costs
would require a much more extensive review of each defendant's
case. The upper term data is not of such detail to reflect, for
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example, those defendants who potentially had a prior strike
allegation dismissed (that would have doubled the defendant's
sentence) by the court in order to impose an upper term, which
could have the practical effect of imposing a shorter overall
sentence than a doubled middle or lower term. Additionally, a
court could impose the upper term and choose not to impose an
enhancement, which would result in a longer overall sentence. As
a result, an inmate sentenced to an upper term under existing
determinate sentencing law could potentially receive a longer
term under the proposed sentencing structure proposed by this
measure.
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