State v. Estrada

• Decision Date: 04 March 2005
• Docket Number: No. 1 CA-CR 03-0914.,1 CA-CR 03-0914.
• Citation: 210 Ariz. 111,108 P.3d 261
• Parties: STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. George Melendez ESTRADA, Appellant.
• Court: Arizona Court of Appeals

108 P.3d 261

210 Ariz. 111

STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. George Melendez ESTRADA, Appellant.

No. -0914.

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division 1, Department E.

March 4, 2005.

As Amended March 10, 2005.

Terry Goddard, Attorney General, By Randall M. Howe, Chief Counsel, Criminal Appeals Section, and Diane M. Acosta, Assistant Attorney General, Phoenix, for Appellee.

James J. Haas, Maricopa County Public Defender, By Susan L. Corey, Deputy Public Defender, Phoenix, for Appellant.

OPINION

HALL, J.

¶ 1 The issue presented on appeal is whether the Sixth Amendment's jury-trial guarantee¹ as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. ___, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), entitles a defendant whose prior convictions constitute an aggravating circumstance to jury findings on the existence of any additional aggravating factors. We conclude that, under Arizona's noncapital sentencing scheme, a defendant is not constitutionally entitled to jury findings in such a case.²

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

¶ 2 On April 22, 2003, the victim was home alone when she heard a knock at her front door. She did not recognize the man at the door and did not open it. The man, later identified as Estrada, sat in a chair on the front porch and began reading a newspaper. Periodically, he would get up and knock on the door, look into the window, and shake the door knob. The victim surreptitiously watched Estrada from inside the house but did not reveal her presence.

¶ 3 After repeating this pattern for approximately half an hour, Estrada went to the side of the house. Becoming increasingly alarmed, the victim called the police. Estrada tried unsuccessfully to open the door of her truck and then climbed atop some wooden pallets near her fence and whistled. Bolt cutters were handed over the fence. Estrada used the bolt cutters to cut the lock on the back gate and another lock on the gate leading to the back alley where a white truck was parked. Estrada's accomplice entered the backyard through the alley gate. Estrada then used the bolt cutters to cut the lock securing the victim's lawn mower to a wooden post and took the lawn mower.

¶ 4 Estrada came to the victim's back door and unsuccessfully attempted to open the sliding door lock. The victim became increasingly frightened and worried that the police would not respond in time, and hung up the telephone and called her neighbor. The neighbor came over immediately and confronted the two men who fled to the white truck in the alley.

¶ 5 By this time, two Phoenix Police Officers had responded to the scene and had just come upon the entrance to the alley when the truck appeared. The officers ordered the men out of the truck and put them under arrest. At trial, both officers identified Estrada as one of the occupants of the truck.

¶ 6 The officers found a padlock with its clasp cut on the front seat of the truck and the lawn mower in the bed of the truck. One of the officer's found bolt cutters in the victim's backyard, a broken chain that had secured the front gate, a broken lock on the ground near the back gate, and a cut cable that had been used to tether the lawn mower to the post.

¶ 7 Later that morning, the victim identified Estrada and his accomplice as the men she had seen at her house. She was able to make the identification based upon the clothing both men were wearing.

¶ 8 Both men were charged with one count of burglary in the third degree, a class 4 felony, and one count of possession of burglary tools, a class 6 felony, and tried separately. The jury convicted Estrada on both counts and the court sentenced him to aggravated prison terms of 11 years and 4 years, respectively, to be served concurrently. Estrada timely appealed.

DISCUSSION

I.

¶ 9 Estrada claims that the aggravated sentences imposed by the trial court violate Blakely. Because he had multiple historical prior felony convictions and committed the present offenses while on probation, see Ariz.Rev.Stat. (A.R.S.) §§ 13-604(C) and -604.02(B) (2001), Estrada faced the following sentencing ranges: (1) a minimum flat-time sentence of 10 up to a maximum of 12 years for burglary in the third degree; and (2) a minimum flat-time sentence of 3.75 up to a maximum of 4.5 years for possession of burglary tools.³ Before imposing Estrada's sentence, the trial court found four aggravating circumstances: (1) emotional trauma to the victim as a result of the incident, (2) the presence of an accomplice, (3) that the offenses were committed for pecuniary gain, and (4) Estrada's extensive history of felony convictions,⁴ and one mitigating circumstance: Estrada's history of substance abuse. The court then found that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstance and imposed slightly aggravated sentences of 11 and 4 years, respectively.

¶ 10 Estrada contends that the judicial determination of aggravating circumstances denied him the jury-trial guarantee of the Sixth Amendment that "every defendant [has] the right to insist that the prosecutor prove to a jury all facts legally essential to the punishment." Blakely, 542 U.S. at ___, 124 S.Ct. at 2543. In Blakely, the Supreme Court held that a Washington State statute that authorized a trial judge to impose a sentence above the "standard range" based on facts found by the court at sentencing by a preponderance of evidence violated Blakely's federal constitutional right to have a jury determine beyond a reasonable doubt all facts legally essential to his sentence: "When a judge inflicts punishment that the jury's verdict alone does not allow, the jury has not found all the facts `which the law makes essential to the punishment,' and the judge exceeds his proper authority." Id. at ___, 124 S.Ct. at 2537 (citations omitted).

¶ 11 However, one of the aggravating factors found by the trial court — Estrada's history of prior felony convictions — is exempt from the Blakely rule:

This case requires us to apply the rule we expressed in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000): "Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt."

Id. at ___, 124 S.Ct. at 2536 (emphasis added). See United States v. Quintana-Quintana, 383 F.3d 1052, 1053 (9th Cir.2004)

(citing widespread agreement among federal circuit courts that Blakely preserves the exception for the fact of a prior conviction); State v. Cons, 208 Ariz. 409, 413, ¶ 10 n. 3, 94 P.3d 609, 613 n. 3 (App.2004). Furthermore, because several of Estrada's convictions occurred within ten years preceding the date of the current offenses, the court was required to consider them as aggravating factors. See A.R.S. § 13-702(C)(11) (2001) (requiring that the court consider as an aggravating circumstance that a "defendant was previously convicted of a felony within the ten years immediately preceding the date of the offense"). Hence, no additional facts were necessary to support the aggravated sentences imposed in this case. See State v. Brown (McMullen), 209 Ariz. 200, 202, ¶ 11, 99 P.3d 15, 17 (2004) ("Section 13-702(A) allows an increase of [the] presumptive sentence to [the] maximum ... upon a finding of one or more of the aggravating circumstances set forth in § 13-702(C)."). Indeed, a defendant must be sentenced to an aggravated term if the trial court finds one or more aggravating circumstances and no mitigating circumstance(s). A.R.S. § 13-702(D)(5).

¶ 12 Thus, it is clear that had the trial court restricted its finding of aggravating circumstances to Estrada's prior convictions, Estrada could only ask us to review his sentences for an abuse of discretion by the trial court. See State v. Long, 207 Ariz. 140, 147,

¶ 37, 83 P.3d 618, 625 (App.2004) ("If sufficient and appropriate aggravating circumstances exist to justify imposition of an aggravated sentence, we will find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's decision to impose such a sentence."). The question therefore presented is whether Blakely nonetheless required that the additional aggravating factors be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt because they were facts that "increase[d] the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum." Estrada did not raise this claim in the trial court; therefore, we review for fundamental error. See State v. Henderson, 209 Ariz. 300, 302, ¶ 1, 100 P.3d 911, 913 (App.2004) (reviewing claimed Blakely violation for fundamental error); State v. Martinez, 209 Ariz. 280, 282, ¶ 1, 100 P.3d 30, 32 (App.2004) (same) (petition for review granted on February 8, 2005).⁵

¶ 13 Blakely describes the term "prescribed statutory maximum" as:

the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant.... In other words, the relevant "statutory maximum" is not the maximum sentence a judge may impose after finding additional facts, but the maximum he may impose without any additional findings.

542 U.S. at ___, 124 S.Ct. at 2537. Under Arizona's statutory scheme, Estrada's criminal history constituted an aggravating circumstance that — without the need for any additional jury findings — exposed him to being sentenced to 12 and 4.5 years, respectively, based solely on the facts reflected in the jury verdicts. Because the sentences imposed by the trial court did not exceed these maximums, the three additional aggravating circumstances found by the trial court were not facts legally essential to the punishment; thus, Estrada had no legal right to have a jury determine their existence. See id. at ___, 124 S.Ct. at 2543 ("[E]very defendant has the right to insist that the prosecutor prove to the jury all facts legally essential to the punishment.").

¶ 14 Instead, given the existence of Estrada's Blakely-exempt prior convictions, § 13-702...