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Name: People v. Guess
Case #: H029808
Court: CA Court of Appeal
District 6 DCA
Opinion Date: 12/21/2007
Summary

A defendant does not have a Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and proof beyond a reasonable doubt to the determination of whether he was on probation at the time of the instant offense, when this factor is used to aggravate his sentence to the upper term. (Almendarez v. Torres (1998) 523 U.S. 224.) In this remand from the California Supreme Court for reconsideration of the imposed upper term sentence in view of People v. Black (2007) 41 Cal.4th 825 (Black II) and People v. Sandoval (2007) 41 Cal.4th 825, the appellate court found that the Almendarez-Torres prior conviction exception included a defendant’s status of being on probation when the offense occurred because, like a prior conviction, said status can be readily determined by reference to court records pertaining to the conviction resulting in the grant of probation.