High court: Jury
gets discretion in
prison sentences
The justices strike down a law letting judges decide what justifies longer terms. The ruling defies the usual conservative-liberal split.

By Mark Sherman
The Associated Press

Washington — The Supreme Court, with its new chief justice joining the majority, made clear Monday that juries, not judges, must determine facts that justify harsher prison sentences.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court struck down California's Determinate Sentencing Law, the latest in a se¬ries of decisions limiting judges' discretion in sentencing.
In California, thousands of in¬mates may be eligible to have their sentences reduced, in many cases, by about a year.
"This court has repeatedly held that, under the Sixth Amendment, any fact that ex¬poses a defendant to a greater po¬tential sentence must be found by the jury, not a judge, and es¬tablished beyond a reasonable doubt, not merely by a prepon¬derance of the evidence," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court.
The majority was one vote larger than the 5-4 rulings that have been the norm in sentenc¬ing cases. In his first major case dealing with the constitutionali.- ty of prison terms, Chief Justice John Roberts joined Ginsburg's majority opinion.
By contrast, the other new jus¬tice, former federal prosecutor Samuel Alito, issued a strong dis¬sent, saying California's law "is indistinguishable in any consti¬tutionally significant respect" from the federal sentencing guidelines that have been ap¬proved by the Supreme Court.
Alito's dissent also suggested that the court may not be done tinkering with the federal sen¬tencing scheme, if the justices ap¬ply the same line of reasoning to two federal sentencing cases they will hear next month. Justic¬es Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy also dissented.
Several states have changed their sentencing laws to require prosecutors to prove to a jury ag¬ gravating factors that could lead to longer sentences. The court did not prescribe a way to fix the California law. "The ball lies in California's court," Ginsburg said.
Justices Antonin Scalia, David Souter, John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas also were in the majority on an issue that con¬founds the typical conservative-liberal split on the court.
The ruling Monday in Cun¬ningham vs. California could shave four years off the i6-year sentence of former Richmond, Calif., police officer John Cun¬ningham. He was convicted of sexually abusing his 10-year-old son after the boy moved in with Cunningham and his girlfriend.
California had argued that a 2005 state Supreme Court deci¬sion interpreting the state law ef¬fectively brought the state into compliance with the U.S. high
court's rulings. The law instructs judges to sentence inmates to the middle of three options, un¬less factors exist that justify the shorter or longer prison term.
The judge in Cunningham's case imposed the longest possi¬ble term.
The state warned that its crimi¬nal justice system would be bur¬dened by having to resentence thousands of inmates.
But Peter Gold, Cunningham's lawyer, told the court that in many cases the standard term and longer option differ by just a year. In practical terms, many of those who might be affected by Monday's ruling might already have finished serving their time in prison.



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