Full-term-consecutive-sentence mandate doesn’t violate the Sixth Amendment
Applying U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the California Supreme Court today holds in People v. Catarino that a statute requiring full-term consecutive prison sentences for certain sex crimes found by a judge to have been committed “on separate occasions” does not offend the Sixth Amendment jury trial right. Without the challenged statute, a judge would generally impose partial-term consecutive sentences and it’s the full-term mandate, not the consecutive-sentences requirement, that the defendant claimed was constitutionally objectionable.
