Barragan v. Superior Court

Opinion

SCOTLAND, P. J.

After the United States Supreme Court pulled the plug on California’s determinate sentencing law to the extent it had allowed imposition of the upper term based upon certain aggravating facts found by the trial judge, not the jury (Cunningham v. California (2007) 549 U.S._ [166 L.Ed.2d 856, 127 S.Ct. 856] (hereafter Cunningham)), trial courts have scrambled to determine how to apply that academic holding to the real world of criminal cases pending trial.

In this case, in which defendant Alejandro Quinones Barragan is accused of attempted murder and other crimes, the jury…