People v. Brown CA2/2, B308518

In 2014 defendant Brown was convicted of first degree burglary and multiple other offenses and admitted two prior serious-felony convictions and a five-year recidivist enhancement.
Original aggregate sentence was lengthy; an earlier appeal produced corrections and a reduced abstract of judgment.
Under Proposition 64 a 2013 drug conviction was redesignated an infraction in 2019, prompting a habeas petition and resentencing as a second-strike offender.
At resentencing (2020) the court considered the probation report and prior record, found no mitigation and multiple aggravating factors (notably substantial criminal history and unsatisfactory probation performance), imposed the upper term (6 years) on the burglary count doubled to 12 as a second strike plus a consecutive five-year enhancement, yielding a 23-year term.
Defendant appealed, arguing the imposition of the upper term violated his Sixth Amendment jury-trial rights under Apprendi/Blakely/Cunningham; the appellate panel reviewed counsel’s Wende brief and defendant’s supplemental brief.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether imposing the upper term based on judge-found facts violated the Sixth Amendment under Apprendi/Blakely/Cunningham	The People argued no violation because the aggravating facts were rooted in defendant's prior convictions and record, which are exempt from Apprendi	Brown argued the court relied on judge-found facts to select the high term, so a jury should have found those facts under Apprendi line of cases	Affirmed: no Apprendi violation; prior-conviction-based aggravators and unsatisfactory probation shown by the record fall within the Apprendi exception, and only one valid aggravator is needed to impose the upper term

Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000) (statute-of-conviction exception to jury-trial rule for "the fact of a prior conviction")
Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 (2004) (judicial factfinding cannot increase maximum punishment except for prior convictions)
Cunningham v. California, 549 U.S. 270 (2007) (invalidated California sentencing scheme that allowed judge-found facts to increase maximum term)
People v. Scott, 61 Cal.4th 363 (2015) (explains that Apprendi does not apply to prior-conviction–based aggravators and one valid aggravator suffices for upper term)
People v. Buycks, 5 Cal.5th 857 (2018) (procedures for resentencing when prior strikes are reduced)
Smith v. Robbins, 528 U.S. 259 (2000) (standards for adequacy of appellate counsel review under Anders/Wende procedure)
People v. Wilson, 164 Cal.App.4th 988 (2008) (discusses legislative amendment to section 1170(b) and judicial discretion in term selection)