In In re Cook, the Supreme Court today holds that a prisoner sentenced for a crime committed as a minor has a right to make a record in court now for a statutorily required parole hearing that will occur after 25 years of incarceration, even if the sentence is past the point of a challenge on direct appeal. The court established the record-making procedure three years ago in People v. Franklin (2016) 63 Cal.4th 261, but that case didn’t involve a defendant whose conviction was final.
The court’s 6-1 opinion by Justice Carol Corrigan nonetheless concludes that, to invoke the right to a Franklin proceeding, “resort to the writ of habeas corpus in the first instance would be unnecessarily cumbersome” and that a statutory motion in the superior court is the better procedural route.
The court reverses the Fourth District, Division Three, Court of Appeal, because the appellate court granted the prisoner’s habeas corpus petition instead of just allowing the prisoner to file a proper motion in the superior court. This is the second time the Supreme Court granted review in this case. The first time, the court transferred the matter back to the Court of Appeal for reconsideration in light of Franklin.
Justice Leondra Kruger partially dissents. Unlike the majority, she believes a prisoner whose conviction is final is not entitled to as full a proceeding as a defendant challenging his or her conviction on appeal, because the Legislature has not authorized it.