The Supreme Court today denied a request to depublish the Fourth District, Division Two, Court of Appeal’s opinion in People v. Superior Court (Valdez), which requires denial of a petition for resentencing of a defendant for a murder he committed when he was 17. Justice Goodwin Liu concurred, but issued a separate statement to express his “concern[ ] that [the opinion] is being cited as authority for something it does not say.”
The opinion is about a second petition 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.”
Justice Liu relates that the depublication request reported that the Valdez opinion “is cited as ‘controlling authority’ in opposition to ‘all’ of the initial resentencing petitions under section 1170(d)(1) that the [Los Angeles County] public defender’s office is handling for petitioners otherwise eligible for . . . resentencing under Heard” and he says that “the Riverside County District Attorney’s opposition to depublication maintains this reading of Valdez.” “In fact,” Liu maintains, “Valdez says nothing about the meaning of functional LWOP for purposes of the inquiry” for initial section 1170 petitions.
The Supreme Court last month agreed to hear People v. Munoz, concerning an initial section 1170 petition. It is expected to decide if a 50-year-to-life sentence qualifies for resentencing on the ground it is the functional equivalent of an LWOP sentence. (See here.)
