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any threat to the jury's domain as a bulwark at trial between the State and the accused. Instead, the defendant – who historically may have faced consecutive sentences by default – has been granted by some modern legislatures statutory protections meant to temper the harshness of the historical practice.” “As we have described, the scope of the constitutional jury right must be informed by the historical role of the jury at common law. See, e.g., Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 98-100, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970). It is therefore not the case that, as Ice suggests, the federal constitutional right attaches to every contemporary state-law ‘entitlement’ to predicate findings.” Scalia, writing for Roberts, Souter, and Thomas, dissents. Kolar v. State, 292 Ga.App. 623, 665 S.E.2d 719 (July 9, 2008). Trial court properly sentenced defendant for felony child molestation, rejecting defendant’s argument that the State must “prove the absence of the mitigating circumstances set forth in OCGA § 16-6-4(b)(2), which reduce the punishment to a misdemeanor. Essentially, Kolar is claiming that the offense of child molestation is a misdemeanor unless the State alleges and proves to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the circumstances set forth in OCGA § 16-6-4(b)(2) do not apply. We disagree.” Defendant’s argument is based on the Apprendi [ v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000)] line of cases. “The focus of these cases is that a jury must find those facts which increase the punishment for a crime; they do not suggest that the jury must find those mitigating facts which decrease the punishment for a crime. To the contrary, the seminal case of Apprendi carefully noted the distinction ‘between facts in aggravation of punishment and facts in mitigation.’ Supra, 530 U.S. at 490, fn. 16. Apprendi explained: ‘If facts found by a jury support a guilty verdict of murder, the judge is authorized by that jury verdict to sentence the defendant to the maximum sentence provided by the murder statute. If the defendant can escape the statutory maximum by showing, for example, that he is a war veteran, then a judge that finds the fact of veteran status is neither exposing the defendant to a deprivation of liberty greater than that authorized by the verdict according to statute, nor is the judge imposing upon the defendant a greater stigma than that accompanying the jury verdict alone. Core concerns animating the jury and burden-of-proof requirements are thus absent from such a scheme.’ (Citation omitted.) Id. See Ring [ v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 597, fn. 4, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002)].” OCGA § 16-6-4(b)(2) provides for misdemeanor punishment “if the victim is at least 14 years old and ‘the person convicted of child molestation ’ (showing that this subsection is describing a sentencing factor, not an element of the crime) is 18 years of age or younger (and is no more than four years older than the victim). (Emphasis supplied.) … Thus, the factors set forth in paragraph (2) describe an exception to the baseline felony punishment and mitigate or decrease that punishment to the lower level of a misdemeanor if these facts are found during the sentencing hearing.” Also citing Orr v. State, 283 Ga.App. 372, 373(2), 641 S.E.2d 613 (2007), and Attaway v. State, 284 Ga.App. 855, 856-857(2), 644 S.E.2d 919 (2007), both holding that indictment was not required to specify whether the statutory rape offense charged was a felony or misdemeanor. John v. State, 282 Ga. 792, 653 S.E.2d 435 (October 9, 2007). Failure to specify in the indictment that defendant is being charged as a party to a crime (murder) does not violate “ Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435) (2000). There, the United States Supreme Court noted that ‘“any fact (other than a prior conviction) that increases the maximum penalty for a crime must be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”[Cit.]’ (Emphasis supplied.) Id. at 476(II). As an allegation that the defendant was a party to the crime would not increase the maximum penalty for that crime, [defendant]'s reliance on Apprendi is misplaced.” Cunningham v. California, 549 U.S. 270, 127 S.Ct. 856, 166 L.Ed.2d 856 (January 22, 2007). California’s determinate sentencing law (DSL), “by placing sentence-elevating factfinding within the judge’s province, violates a defendant’s right to trial by jury safeguarded by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.” The law creates three potential terms – upper, middle, and lower – with the defendant presumptively receiving the middle term unless the trial judge finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that it should be raised or lowered. “The facts so found are neither inherent in the jury’s verdict nor embraced by the defendant’s plea, and they need only be established by a preponderance of the evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt.” As to defendant’s conviction for continuous sexual abuse of a minor, “the DSL obliged the trial judge to sentence Cunningham to the 12-year middle term unless the judge found one or more additional facts in aggravation.” The judge found six aggravating circumstances, which outweighed the one aggravating circumstance, and thus aggravated the sentence to the upper term of 16 years – a sentence which could not be imposed based solely on the facts found by the jury in assessing guilt or innocence. Supreme Court finds that the “relevant statutory maximum” is thus the middle range sentence. Three dissenters (Kennedy, Breyer, Alito) contend that the DSL does not violate the Constitution because the trial court’s determination is not limited to “facts” but “circumstances.” Majority disagrees: “California’s DSL, and the rules governing its application, direct the sentencing court to start with the middle term, and to move from that term only when the court itself finds and places on the record facts – whether related to the offense or the offender – beyond the elements of the charged offense.” “Because circumstances in aggravation are