Cunningham v. California

In the case of Cunningham vs. California Mr. Cunningham appealed the criminal sentence that was handed down from the state of California. Mr. Cunningham claimed that his Fifth Amendment right to due process of law and Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial were both violated. A jury in California convicted Mr. Cunningham of continually sexually abusing a child that was under the age of fourteen years.

The state of California has three different prison terms for the sexual abuse of a child under the age of fourteen. At the time of sentencing the judge in the case found six irritating factors that led the judge to give Mr. Cunningham the longest possible prison term. In his findings the judge looked into documents that included a probation report, Mr. Cunningham's psychological evaluations, and various letters from the community in which Mr. Cunningham lived.

Mr. Cunningham appealed his sentence to the California Court of Appeal considering the different view of the Unites States Supreme Court case of Blakely v. Washington. This case required the judges in the case to only consider facts that the jury had come to conclude or that the defendant had admitted. The California Court of Appeal, holding that the judge in the case only gave the maximum allowable sentence that was allowed for the crime that Mr. Cunningham had committed, upheld the sentence. Later the California Court of Appeal modified the holding stating that sentencing Mr. Cunningham again was not needed since it was not likely that the court would have given a lesser sentence if the court had had not looked into the inappropriate factors. In the end the California Supreme Court declined to hear Mr. Cunningham's case.

Click here to learn more about Debra Wabnik of Simmons, Jannace & Stagg