Opinion
A162170
07-30-2021
In re EUGENE JONES, on Habeas Corpus.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Contra Costa County Super. Ct. No. 51816487
TUCHER, J.
Eugene Jones is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for the 1994 robbery and murder of a store clerk, a crime he committed at the age of 19. Had he been a juvenile when he committed the crime, he would now be eligible for parole under Penal Code section 3051, a statute that generally makes those who commit a heinous crime at or before the age of 25 (youthful offenders) eligible for parole after serving a considerable portion of their sentence. (See Pen. Code, § 3051, subd. (b)(4); all statutory references are to the Penal Code.) However, section 3051 expressly excludes from its reach those who commit an LWOP offense after their 18th birthday. (§ 3051, subd. (h).) In this petition for writ of habeas corpus, Jones contends that section 3051's exclusion of LWOP prisoners who committed their crimes as 18- to 25-year-olds violates the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, section 7 of the California Constitution. He argues that young-adult LWOP offenders are similarly situated for the purpose of section 3051 to those who committed their LWOP offenses before the age of 18, and that there is no rational basis for excluding them from the provisions of the statute. On the latter point, we disagree.
We grant Jones's request to take judicial notice of the record on appeal in People v. Jones, A155475; A157877 (In re Jones (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 477); and In re Jones, A159243.
In 1998, Jones entered into a negotiated plea to first degree murder, with robbery and burglary special circumstances and an LWOP sentence. (See §§ 187, subd. (a), 192, subds. (a)(17)(A) & (G).) He did not appeal but did, in 2018, file a petition in the superior court to recall his sentence pursuant to section 1170, subdivision (d)(2) (§ 1170(d)(2)). The petition was unsuccessful. Although section 1170(d)(2) requires a court to hold a hearing and consider resentencing a defendant serving an LWOP sentence if specified conditions are met, Jones was ineligible because he was not a juvenile when he committed the murder. (See § 1170, subds. (d)(2)(A) & (E).) Jones then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in this court, arguing that section 1170(d)(2) violates equal protection because it denies young-adult LWOP offenders the same opportunity to petition for resentencing that similarly situated juvenile offenders enjoy. (In re Jones (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 477, 480 (Jones I).)
We denied the previous petition on the ground that “ ‘children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing.' ” (Jones I, supra, 42 Cal.App.5th at p. 481.) The language comes from Miller v. Alabama (2012) 567 U.S. 460, 471 (Miller), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that a mandatory LWOP sentence for juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment. (See also Graham v. Florida (2010) 560 U.S. 48, 58, 68 [8th Amendment prohibits LWOP for juvenile offender convicted of nonhomicide offense]; Roper v. Simmons (2005) 543 U.S. 551, 569 (Roper) [8th Amendment prohibits sentence of death for any crime committed by a juvenile].) The California Supreme Court has also recognized the importance of treating children differently from adults in criminal sentencing, including in People v. Caballero (2012) 55 Cal.4th 262 (Caballero), where it urged the state legislature to establish a parole eligibility mechanism for defendants serving de facto LWOP sentences for nonhomicide crimes they committed as juveniles (Caballero, at p. 269, fn. 5), and in People v. Contreras (2018) 4 Cal.5th 349, where it held that the Eighth Amendment prevents juvenile nonhomicide offenders from receiving a sentence so long that they have no prospect of release while young enough to reintegrate into society.
In rejecting Jones's previous habeas petition, we held that young-adult LWOP offenders are not similarly situated to juvenile offenders for purposes of section 1170(d)(2), and that the Legislature had “ ‘a constitutionally sufficient reason to treat the groups differently' ” in allowing only juvenile LWOP offenders to apply for resentencing. (Jones I, supra, 42 Cal.App.5th at p. 482.) “While a different line could have been drawn, it is not entirely arbitrary to limit section 1170(d)(2) to individuals who committed their crimes before they were 18 years old, ” we concluded. (Id. at p. 483.) The Legislature may have recognized that a broader class of youthful offenders lack developmental and neurological maturity, but it could still “reasonably decide that for those convicted of LWOP crimes, the line should be drawn at age 18, rather than at some later date when the brain is fully developed.” (Ibid.) Much of what we said in reaching this conclusion applies equally to an equal protection challenge directed at section 3051, but Justice Pollak's concurring opinion in Jones I pointed out that no challenge to section 3051 was then before us, “and our decision should not be misunderstood to prejudge that question.” (Id. at p. 484 (conc. opn. of Pollak, J.).)
Jones then brought a petition for habeas corpus challenging his exclusion from section 3051 on equal protection grounds. After petitioning unsuccessfully in the trial court, he filed the instant petition. We issued an order to show cause, received full briefing, and heard oral argument. In the meantime, a different panel of this Division heard and has today rejected an effectively identical claim in People v. Morales (2021), __ Cal.App.5th __, *33-*40 (Morales). We follow Morales and our sister courts that have likewise rejected the same equal protection challenge to section 3051. (See, e.g., People v. Acosta (2021) 60 Cal.App.5th 769 (Acosta); People v. Jackson (2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 189 (Jackson).)
The Attorney General argues that this petition is successive and should on that basis be denied, since Jones could have included his equal protection challenge to section 3051 in his petition raising an equal protection challenge to section 1170. (Citing In re Clark (1993) 5 Cal.4th 750, 769.) Jones argues the exception in Clark for intervening changes in the law (id. at p. 775), asserting that it was first the concurrence in Jones I that teed up the challenge he now brings to section 3051. We note that People v. Edwards (2019) 34 Cal.App.5th 183, the first successful equal-protection challenge to section 3051, post-dates Jones's 2018 filing in the superior court of the petition that preceded Jones I (Jones I, supra, 42 Cal.App.5th at p. 480), and that Jones filed a habeas petition raising his equal protection challenge to section 3051 just a few weeks after our decision in Jones I, where Justice Pollak suggested the possibility of a challenge to section 3051's exclusion of young-adult LWOP prisoners. We therefore elect to consider this petition on the merits. (See In re Clark, at p. 797 [general rule barring successive petitions “should not be inflexible”].)
“To succeed on an equal protection claim, [petitioner] must first show that the state has adopted a classification that affects two or more similarly situated groups in an unequal manner.” (People v. Edwards (2019) 34 Cal.App.5th 183, 195.) “[E]qual protection analysis does not require that two groups of defendants be the same, or even that they be ‘ “ ‘similarly situated for all purposes.' ”' [Citation.] It is enough that ‘ “ ‘ “they are similarly situated for purposes of the law challenged.”' ”' [Citation.] Here, the purpose of section 3051 is to give youthful offenders ‘a meaningful opportunity to obtain release' after they have served at least 15, 20, or 25 years in prison (§ 3051, subd. (e)) and made ‘a showing of rehabilitation and maturity.' (Contreras, supra, 4 Cal.5th at [p.] 381.) The Legislature said so expressly when it first passed the bill that became section 3051, ” which reached only prisoners who committed their crimes as juveniles. (Edwards, at p. 198.) In 2015, the Legislature expanded section 3051's parole eligibility mechanism to reach young adults committing crimes up to the age of 23 and, in 2017, up to the age of 25. (Edwards, at p. 198.) For these amendments, the “expressly stated rationale was to account for neuroscience research that the human brain-especially those portions responsible for judgment and decisionmaking-continues to develop into a person's mid-20s.” (Ibid.; see Sen. Com. on Public Safety, Analysis of Sen. Bill No. 261 (2015-2016 Reg. Sess) Apr. 28, 2015, p. 3; Sen. Rules Com., Off. of Sen. Floor Analyses, 3d reading analysis of Assem. Bill No. 1308 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.), as amended Mar. 30, 2017, Apr. 25, 2017, p. 2.)
So far, this statement of purpose suggests that young-adult LWOP offenders are similarly situated with juvenile LWOP offenders for purposes of section 3051. (Accord Acosta, supra, 60 Cal.App.5th at p. 779; Jackson, supra, 61 Cal.App.5th at pp. 200-202 (conc. opn. of Dato, J.).) As Justice Pollak pointed out when concurring in Jones I, “[b]oth a person sentenced to LWOP for a crime committed while under 18 and a person receiving the same sentence for a crime committed when 18 or slightly older committed their offenses before their character was necessarily ‘well formed' and when their judgment and decisionmaking were likely to improve. Both are similarly situated for the purpose of evaluating whether they have outgrown the youthful impulses that led to the commission of their offenses.” (Jones I, supra, 42 Cal.App.5th at pp. 485-486 (conc. opn. of Pollak, J.).)
But we note that until 2017 no prisoner serving an LWOP sentence was eligible for relief under section 3051, and when the Legislature amended the statute to include those who had committed their LWOP crimes as juveniles it explained the purpose of the amendment this way: “This amendment was designed to ‘bring California into compliance with the constitutional requirements of Miller and Montgomery [v. Louisiana (2016) 577 U.S. 190],' which held that Miller's prohibition on mandatory LWOP sentences for juvenile offenders was retroactive. (Sen. Com. on Public Safety, Analysis of Sen. Bill No. 394 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.) Mar. 21, 2017, p. 4.) The bill sought ‘to remedy the now unconstitutional juvenile sentences of life without the possibility of parole,' without the need for ‘a resentencing hearing, which is time-consuming, expensive, and subject to extended appeals.' (Id. at p. 3.)” (Acosta, supra, 60 Cal.App.5th at p. 777.) Viewed from the vantage point of this amendment, juvenile and young-adult offenders do not appear similarly situated for purposes of the statute, in that it is only as to juveniles that a mandatory LWOP sentence violates the Constitution and must be subject to some kind of review. (Montgomery v. Louisiana, supra, 577 U.S. at p. 212 [“State may remedy a Miller violation by permitting juvenile homicide offenders to be considered for parole, rather than by resentencing them”].)
We need not resolve the tension between these two views because Jones's challenge falters on the second step of an equal protection analysis. Where two groups are similarly situated but differently treated, “equal protection of the law is denied only where there is no ‘rational relationship between the disparity of treatment and some legitimate governmental purpose.' ” (People v. Turnage (2012) 55 Cal.4th 62, 74.) If a plausible basis exists for the disparity, “[e]qual protection analysis does not entitle the judiciary to second-guess the wisdom, fairness, or logic of the law.” (Ibid.) Even if inmates who committed their LWOP offenses as juveniles are considered to be similarly situated with those who committed their LWOP offenses as young adults, we find a rational basis for the Legislature to have treated these two groups disparately.
First, Section 3051's distinction between LWOP prisoners who committed their crimes as juveniles and those who did so as young adults is rationally related to the state's compelling interest in complying with the Eighth Amendment. Extending youthful offender parole hearings to those serving LWOP sentences for crimes committed when they were juveniles was a cost-effective way to bring “ ‘California into compliance with the constitutional requirements of Miller and Montgomery.' ” (Acosta, supra, 60 Cal.App.5th at p. 777.) “[B]ecause Montgomery did not compel such treatment for young adults, ” there was a rational reason not to extend section 3051 to them. (Acosta, at pp. 779-780.)
Second, a legislative determination that the maturing process normally continues into a person's mid-20s does not prevent the Legislature from drawing a line for LWOP prisoners at those who committed their crimes before the age of 18. In determining eligibility for relief, a line must be drawn somewhere, and “while ‘[d]rawing the line at 18 years of age is subject... to the objections always raised against categorical rules... [, it] is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood.' ” (People v. Argeta (2012) 210 Cal.App.4th 1478, 1482 [quoting Roper, supra, 543 U.S. at p. 574].) Rational basis review does not prevent the Legislature from tackling a problem “ ‘ “ ‘one step at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem which seems most acute to the legislative mind.' ”' ” (People v. Lopez (2019) 38 Cal.App.5th 1087, 111, review granted Nov. 13, 2019, S258175.) In that spirit, there is nothing constitutionally objectionable about the Legislature choosing “to target the youngest, and presumably most deserving, of the group of youthful offenders whose brains [a]re still developing and whose judgment ha[s] not yet matured. While young adults share many of the attributes of youth, they are by definition further along in the process of maturation [than are juveniles], and the law need not be blind to the difference.” (Jones I, supra, 42 Cal.App.5th at p. 482.)
Thus we conclude, with Morales, that the equal protection claim fails because Jones “has not demonstrated that the Legislature lacked a rational basis for treating” LWOP prisoners who committed crimes as juveniles differently from those who committed their crimes as young adults. (Morales, supra, __ Cal.App.5th at p. *36.) But we also acknowledge that the traits that make juvenile offenders less culpable and more susceptible to reform than fully mature individuals are not “crime-specific” (Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at p. 473; Caballero, supra, 55 Cal.4th at pp. 267-268), and that these traits are shared to a certain extent by young-adult offenders. (See Morales, at p. *40.) For these reasons the Legislature may wish to reconsider its exclusion of young-adult LWOP offenders from the chance to apply for parole after 25 years of incarceration. (§ 3051, subd. (b)(4); see, e.g., Morales, at pp. *33-*40, p. *1 (conc. opn. of Pollak, J.); Jackson, 61 Cal.App.5th at p. 202 (conc. statement of Liu, J.) [denying review].)
DISPOSITION
The petition for writ of habeas corpus is denied.
I CONCUR: STREETER, J.
POLLAK, P.J., Dissenting.
For the reasons stated in my concurring and dissenting opinion in People v. Morales (July __, 2021, A157644) __ Cal.App.5th __, I continue to maintain that denying youthful offenders sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole the right to eventual consideration under section 3051, while extending such consideration to youthful offenders sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, is irrational and a denial of equal protection.