Yesterday, we published Part I of our report on Wednesday’s double Supreme Court conference, including three cases with dissents from review denials. Here are recaps of five more cases that only one or two justices voted to hear.
Dissenting votes: full resentencing
The court denied review in People v. Powell, but Justices Liu and Evans recorded votes to hear the case.
The published opinion of the First District, Division Four, held that the defendant was not entitled to a full resentencing, based on new ameliorative legislation, when the superior court made a minor presentence-custody-credits adjustment to his 50 years to life sentence that had been imposed 15 years earlier. The defendant’s “judgment remains final,” the appellate court reasoned.
Division Four did take sides in a conflict about whether the superior court had jurisdiction even to adjust the defendant’s custody credits, finding there was jurisdiction because the original credits finding was a clerical, not a judicial, error. It followed the earlier Division Four opinion in People v. Jack (1989) 213 Cal.App.3d 913 and others, rather than the Fourth District, Division Two, decision in People v. Boyd (2024) 103 Cal.App.5th 56, which disagreed with Jack.
The Supreme Court denied review in Jack and Boyd. Justice Groban dissented from the Boyd denial.
Dissenting vote: misdemeanor speedy trial
The court denied review in Ruiz v. Superior Court with Justice Evans recording a dissenting vote. Ruiz presented the same issue as Bishop v. Superior Court, in which Evans also dissented from the denial of review. (See a report on Bishop in Part I of the conference recap.)
The Ruiz petition for review states the issue: “Where the district attorney has a witness under subpoena for trial and seeks a continuance based on that witness’s workplace training can the court continue a misdemeanor trial beyond the statutory deadline as set in Penal Code section 1382 to accommodate the district attorney’s request and the court’s own scheduling preferences?”
As in the Bishop petition, the Ruiz petition says, “The continuation of misdemeanor trials beyond the Section 1382 deadline is a reoccurring issue in Solano County.”
Dissenting votes: juvenile de facto LWOP resentencing
Justices Liu and Evans also recorded dissenting votes from the denials of review in People v. Ortiz, People v. Palmer, and People v. Snyder. The Fourth District, Division Two, in unpublished opinions (Ortiz; Palmer) and the Second District, Division Five, also in an unpublished opinion (Snyder), affirmed the denials of resentencing petitions by the defendants who were sentenced to long prison terms — but less than life without parole — for crimes for murder and/or attempted murder committed as minors.
The defendants sought relief under Penal Code section 1170, which generally permits resentencing of some defendants who were sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed when they were minors, and under the Fourth District, Division One, decision in People v. Heard (2022) 83 Cal.App.5th 608, which held that, consistent with equal protection principles, resentencing must also be allowed for those sentenced to the “functional equivalent of life without parole.”
Citing a lack of authority that a 40 (Ortiz) or 41 (Palmer) years to life sentence is the functional equivalent of LWOP, Division Two found dispositive, in Ortiz, that the defendant “will be eligible for parole when he is 57 years old, which is a sufficiently young enough age to provide him a meaningful opportunity for release and reintegration into society,” and, in Palmer, that “defendant is eligible for parole in 2033, when he will be 52 years old decades before his natural life expectancy. This provides him with ‘a realistic opportunity to obtain release from prison during his expected lifetime.’ ” The Snyder court concluded the defendant’s 32 years to life sentence was not the functional equivalent of LWOP.
The Supreme Court last year granted review in People v. Munoz to decide whether a juvenile homicide offender sentenced to 50 years to life in prison is entitled to recall and resentencing under section 1170(d)(1), on the ground that the sentence is the functional equivalent of life imprisonment without parole. (See here; see also here.)
50 years to life sentences are getting the court’s attention; lesser, but still very lengthy, sentences, not so much. (See here.)
The Supreme Court said the three denials of review are “without prejudice to any relief to which defendant[s] might be entitled after this court decides . . . Munoz.”
Justice Liu — and Justice Evans — have dissented in similar cases. (See recently here.)
