Court strikes down California sentencing law

Dividing 6-3, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that California’s “determinate sentencing law” is unconstitutional because it allows judges, not juries, to find facts that lead to higher criminal sentences. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority in Cunningham v. California (05-6551). The California system, the Court said, assigns to the trial judge, not the jury, authority to find the facts that expose a convicted individual to an elevated “upper term” sentence. The ruling overturned a decision of the California Supreme Court that the state system satisfied the Sixth Amendment jury trial guarantee.

“In all material respects, California’s DSL resembles the sentencing systems invalidated” in Blakely v. Washiington in 2004 and U.S. v. Booker in 2005, Justice Ginsburg said in announcing the opinion of the Court. She noted that, in the wake of those decisions, California’s Supreme Court had attempted to rescue its judical fact-finding provision as having imposed only a “reasonableness” requirement equivalent to that now required by Booker in federal sentencing. But that limitation, Ginsburg wrote, operates within the Sixth Amendment precedents of the Court, not as a substitute for those constraints. “Because the DSL allocates to judges sole authority to find facts on which the imposition of an upper term sentence turns, the system violates the Sixth Amendment. The remedy prescribed in Booker, in short, is not properly regarded as a recipe for rendering this Court’s Sixth Amendment case law toothless,” Ginsburg said.

Her opinion was supported by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and by Justices Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas There were two dissenting opinions — one by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, supported by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and one by Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., joined by Kennedy and Breyer.

In a second ruling on Monday written by Justice Ginsburg, the Court decided that a declaration by the U.S. attorney general that a federal employee was acting within the scope of official duties is sufficient, under the Westfall Act, to justify transferring a case against that employee from state to federal court and substituting the federal government itself as the defendant. The case then must remain in federal court for decision, according to the ruling. The attorney general is entitled to take over the case, the Court added, even if the government’s response is that the challenged incident did not even occur. The case was Osborn v. Haley (05-593).

In the final decision of the day on the merits, the Court ruled unanimosly that the Prison Litigation Reform Act does not require an inmate to show in a lawsuit challenging prison conditions that all alternative remedies to a lawsuit have been exhausted. The exhaustion requirement of the Act, the Chief Justice wrote for the Court, is “better viewed” as an affirmative defense to be invoked by prison officials. The Court also ruled that the Act does not require dismissal of the entire complaint where a prisoner has failed to exhaust some but not all of the claims in the lawsuit. The ruling came in the consolidated cases of Jones v. Bock (05-7058) and Williams v. Overton (05-7142).

With Monday’s decision, the Court now has only one case from its October sitting not yet decided — Global Crossing Telecom v. Metrophones Telecom (05-705), on the right of a private company to sue a long distance telephone company for failing to pay for coin-less calls from pay phones.

The Court, in orders issued Monday, granted review of no new cases. Last Friday, it had added seven new cases to its decision docket for this Term.

Among cases denied review Monday was a test of the constitutionality of prosecutors’ offer of a crime lab report as evidence instead of the live testimony of the forensic expert who prepared it. The appeal in Campbell v. North Dakota (06-564) was an attempt to take advantage of the Court’s 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington limiting the trial use of statements made out of court and not subjected to cross-examination. The dispute over crime lab reports as a substitute for a live witness’ testimony about it has divided lower courts. A group of professors told the Court that that issue is “the most widespread subject of controversy” about the Confrontation Clause in the wake of Crawford.

The Court also declined to review Lundeen v. Canadian Pacific Railway (06-528), seeking clarification of when a federal law that does not itself authorize a lawsuit to enforce it can be the basis for preempting any state law on the same subject. Lower courts are divided on the question. The case grew out of the derailment of a train in January 2002 near Minot, N.D., sending a cloud of toxic ammonia over the city. In this case, the Eighth Circuit Clourt found that state-law claims by those injured in the incident are completed preempted by federal law, the Federal Railroad Safety Act.

In another order, the Court declined to revisit a significant test case on racial bias in the workplace — Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc. (06-706). The Court last February ordered the Eleventh Circuit Court to reconsider its rulings on the standard to be used in judging when an individual claiming bias in a job decision claims better qualifications than the person chosen for the post, and on the use of the word “boy” by a supervisor toward African-American employees. The Eleventh Circuit, on remand, had reinstated its prior ruling in favor of Tyson Foods.

Once more, the Court took no action on a case testing the constitutionality of displaying religious symbols in public schools during holiday seasons. The Court has examined the case of Skoros v. New York City (06-271) six times without deciding whether or not to hear the case. The Court also did not act Monday on a case it has examined three times — a test of congressional redistricting in the state of Colorado. The case has been to the Court twice before. It is Lance v. Dennis (06-641).

After Monday’s public session, the Court began a recess that will continue until the scheduled Conference on Friday, Feb. 16, with the next public sitting on Tuesday, Feb. 20.