People v. Lynch

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. DEANDRE LYNCH, Defendant and Appellant.

S274942

Third Appellate District C094174

Sacramento County Superior Court 20FE009532

August 1, 2024

Justice Corrigan authored the opinion of the Court, in which Justices Liu, Groban, and Evans concurred.

Justice Kruger filed a concurring and dissenting opinion, in which Justice Jenkins concurred.

Chief Justice Guerrero filed a dissenting opinion.

PEOPLE v. LYNCH S274942

Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J.

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause, “provides that those ‘accused’ of a ‘crime’ have the right to a trial ‘by an impartial jury.’ This right, in conjunction with the Due Process Clause, requires that each element of a crime be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.” (Alleyne v. United States (2013) 570 U.S. 99, 104 (Alleyne), quoting U.S. Const., 6th Amend.; accord, Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) 530 U.S. 466, 476 (Apprendi).) In the context of California’s determinate sentencing scheme, Cunningham v. California (2007) 549 U.S. 270 (Cunningham) held that, “under the Sixth Amendment, any fact that exposes a defendant to a greater potential sentence must be found by a jury, not a judge, and established beyond a reasonable doubt, not merely by a preponderance of the evidence.” (Id. at p. 281.) “Inhering in that guarantee is an assurance that a guilty verdict will issue only from a unanimous jury.” (Erlinger v. United States (2024) 602 U.S. ___, ___ [144 S.Ct. 1840, 1849] (Erlinger); accord, Ramos v. Louisiana (2020) 590 U.S. 83, 90, 92–93 (Ramos).) Effective January 1, 2022, Penal Code1 section 1170, subdivision (b) (hereafter section 1170(b)) was amended to prohibit imposition of an upper term sentence unless

1 All further undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

1

PEOPLE v. LYNCH Opinion of the Court by Corrigan, J.

aggravating circumstances justify that term and the facts underlying any such circumstance, other than a prior conviction, “have been stipulated to by the defendant or have been found true beyond a reasonable doubt at trial by the jury or by the judge in a court trial.” (§ 1170(b)(2), as amended by Stats. 2021, ch. 731, § 1.3.) Allegations of prior convictions may be tried by the court alone and proven by certified records of conviction. (Id., subd. (b)(3).) The Courts of Appeal have uniformly held, and the parties here agree, that this amendment applies retroactively to defendants like Lynch whose judgments were not final on direct appeal at the time the statute took effect. We granted review to decide when a remand for resentencing is required under the new law. We hold that a court reviewing a case where the former version of section 1170(b) was employed must apply the Chapman standard of review. (Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18 (Chapman).) Accordingly, in a case where the judgment is not yet final, a sentence imposed under former section 1170(b) must be reversed and remanded 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. (§ 1170(b)(2), (3).) Throughout this opinion, any discussion of jury findings refers to factual findings made beyond a reasonable doubt. Further, similar to the situation in People v. Gutierrez (2014) 58 Cal.4th 1354, 1390 (Gutierrez), the 2022 amendment to section 1170(b)(1) and (2) altered the scope of the trial court’s discretion. As a result, for sentences imposed under the former law the record must clearly indicate that the court would have found an upper term justified had it been aware of