P. v. Hughes
Appellant Joseph Edward Hughes was tried before a jury and convicted of six counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under 14, along with findings that he had committed acts of substantial sexual conduct as to two of the counts. (Pen. Code, 288, subd. (a), 1203.066, subd. (a)(8).) The trial court imposed an aggregate prison sentence of 18 years, consisting of the eight year upper term on one of the counts, plus a consecutive two year term (one third the middle term) on each of the five remaining counts. In our original unpublished opinion filed on April 21, 2006, we affirmed the judgment and sentence. One of the arguments raised and rejected was a claim that the upper and consecutive terms violated Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) 530 U.S. 466, 490 (Apprendi) and Blakely v. Washington (2004) 542 U.S. 296 (Blakely), because they were based on factors that were neither admitted by appellant nor found true by the jury. The United States Supreme Court granted appellants petition for writ of certiorari on the Apprendi-Blakely issue. On February 20, 2007, that court vacated the judgment and remanded the case to us for further consideration in light of its decision in Cunningham v. California (2007) 127 S.Ct. 856 (Cunningham). We requested and received further briefing from the parties on the effect of Cunningham and two recent California Supreme Court decisions interpreting that case: People v. Black (2007) 41 Cal.4th 799 (Black II) and People v. Sandoval (2007) 41 Cal.4th 825 (Sandoval). In light of these decisions, Court conclude the sentence imposed does not violate the federal constitution and Court again affirm the judgment.
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