In People v. Valencia (consolidated with People v. Chaney), a 4-3 Supreme Court nixes the chances of two felons to reduce third-strike sentences imposed before California voters approved Proposition 36, the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2012. The law allows for resentencing unless the superior court finds doing so “would pose an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety.” Proposition 36 didn’t define the disqualifying “unreasonable risk,” but Proposition 47 — 2014’s Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act — did, classifying it as an unreasonable risk of the future commission of eight specific types of serious felonies. The court’s opinion by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye holds the Proposition 47 definition doesn’t limit a superior court’s discretion to deny a sentence reduction under Proposition 36, even though Proposition 47 specifically provides that its definition is to be “used throughout this Code.”
This is another let’s-read-statutory-language-in-context opinion. (See e.g., here and here.) The court concludes that reading “used throughout this Code” expansively would be “inconsistent with Proposition 47’s uncodified findings, declarations, purpose, and intent.” It says the voters who passed Proposition 47 couldn’t have intended the “unreasonable risk” definition to apply to Proposition 36, especially when neither the Attorney General nor the Legislative Analyst gave those voters a heads-up as to that possible effect.
There are three separate opinions.
Justice Leondra Kruger writes a concurring opinion, which is signed by Justices Ming Chin and Carol Corrigan, all three of whom sign the Chief Justice’s majority opinion. Besides discussing additional statutory interpretation principles, Justice Kruger expresses concern about initiative drafters being able to sneak stuff past the voters, or, as she less colloquially puts it, “To give dispositive effect to an oblique reference to an entire statutory code, in the face of considerable evidence suggesting the intended scope of the statute is materially narrower, would undoubtedly encourage drafters in future cases to deploy similarly oblique references to hide the true scope of proposed legislation from the electorate.” She also “recognize[s] the practical reality that voters are sometimes asked to vote on statutory language that is not drawn with the precision one might hope for.”
Justices Goodwin Liu and Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar write their own dissents, and they sign each others opinions. Justice Kathryn Werdegar signs both dissents, too. Justice Liu says the court historically construed the pre-Proposition 36 Three Strikes law “in accordance with its plain meaning, . . . regardless of whether the text, history, or ballot materials addressed the particular application of the statute at issue” and the contrary way of interpreting Proposition 47 is a “turnabout [that] is as unorthodox in its methodology as it is unsettling in its implications for the initiative process and the limited role of courts in interpreting statutes.” He says the majority opinion “crosses the line from statutory interpretation to judicial legislation.” He is alarmed that the majority’s construction of the law depends in part on the assumption the voters didn’t know what the initiative language meant: “If we can rewrite statutes on the ground that the voters were not aware of what they were enacting, there will be no end to the mischief that courts and litigants can inflict on the initiative process.” Similarly, Justice Cuéllar states that courts should operate on the premise that “the electorate must take a considerable measure of responsibility in enacting complicated laws.”
The court affirms the Third and Fifth District Courts of Appeal. It also “effectively overrules” a 2-1 2016 Sixth District opinion.
