High Court Strikes Down California's Indeterminate Sentencing

Corrections Sentencing leads us to Doug Berman's site and his take on Cunningham today

Dividing 6-3, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that California's "determinate sentencing law" is unconstitutional because it allows judge's 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.
"This court has repeatedly held that, under the Sixth Amendment, any fact that exposes a defendant to a greater potential sentence must be found by the jury, not a judge, and established beyond a reasonable doubt, not merely by a preponderance of the evidence," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court.

NY TIMES ARTICLE