In People v. Patton, the Supreme Court today continues to clarify the parameters for resentencing under legislation that has restricted murder liability by curtailing the felony-murder rule and eliminating the natural and probable consequences doctrine. The court concludes that a petitioner who pleaded guilty to attempted murder before SB 1437 took effect in 2018 is not entitled to a resentencing hearing, at least not yet.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Martin Jenkins holds the “prima facie showing” of entitlement to relief that Penal Code section 1172.6(c) requires a petitioner to make in order to trigger an evidentiary resentencing hearing must be more than “offer[ing] only conclusory allegations . . . in response to a record of conviction that demonstrates the petitioner’s conviction was under a still-valid [murder] theory.” Instead of conclusory allegations, a petitioner has “the burden of coming forward with nonconclusory allegations to alert the prosecution and the court to what issues an evidentiary hearing would entail.”
In the case before it, the “record of conviction” the prosecution submitted was a transcript of Patton’s preliminary hearing. Patton objected to the superior court’s consideration of the transcript in determining whether a prima facie showing had been made, but the court finds there was nothing wrong with that. “Where the facts from the record of conviction are undisputed,” the opinion says, “accepting them over contrary legal allegations that are merely conclusory is not ‘factfinding involving the weighing of evidence or the exercise of discretion.’ ” On the other hand, if a petitioner’s nonconclusory allegations establish a “material fact dispute,” an evidentiary hearing will follow.
The court mostly affirms the Second District, Division Three, Court of Appeal’s belatedly published opinion. (Unlike Division Three, the Supreme Court orders a remand to allow Patton to submit an amended petition.) It disapproves the Fifth District’s decision in People v. Williams (2024) 103 Cal.App.5th 375 and the Second District, Division Six, opinion in People v. Alazar (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 1100; both are grant-and-holds for today’s decision (here and here). It also disapproves the First District, Division Four, decision in People v. Davenport (2021) 71 Cal.App.5th 476 and the Fifth District’s opinion in People v. Flores (2022) 76 Cal.App.5th 974. There was no petition for review in Davenport or Flores.
Murder resentencing cases are a substantial part of the Supreme Court’s workload. A quick look at the court’s pending issues summaries indicates that SB 1437 cases comprise over 25 percent of the court’s non-capital criminal docket.