State high court rules juvenile offender’s 50-year sentence is unconstitutional

In a 4-3 split, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday that the 50- and 58-year sentences given to two juveniles convicted of kidnapping and rape were unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, and violated prohibitions against sentencing juveniles to the functional equivalent of life without parole for non-homicide crimes.

The decision raises new questions about limitations built into the state's youth offender parole hearing law, which went into effect Jan. 1. That law entitles criminals convicted in their youth to parole hearings during their 25th year of incarceration, but makes an exception in those whose sex crimes fall under California's "one strike" law. One Strike requires up to life in prison for first-time violent sex criminals.

Though the 4th District Court of Appeal had affirmed their convictions in the kidnapping and rape of two girls, committed by defendants Leonel Contreras and William Steven Rodriguez as 16-year-olds, it reversed their 50- and 58-year sentences, which it determined were the functional equivalent of life sentences, and therefore prohibited under Graham v. Florida, 560 US 48 (2010).

The state high court affirmed the appellate court's decision and remanded for resentencing.

In Graham, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause does not permit a juvenile to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a non-homicidal crime.

"What emerges from Graham is not a constitutional prohibition on harsh sentences for juveniles who commit serious crimes," wrote Justice Goodwin H. Liu in a decision joined by Justices Ming W. Chin, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and Leondra R. Kruger.

"But Graham 'does prohibit states from making the judgment at the outset that those offenders never will be fit to reenter society. What the state must do . . . is give defendants like Graham some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.'" People v. Contreras, 2018 DJDAR 1782.

The court deferred its decision in Contreras pending its decision in People v. Franklin (2016) 63 Cal. 4th 261. Franklin, a juvenile murderer, claimed that his 50-year sentence was the functional equivalent of life without parole, but the court rejected his claim because the youth offender parole hearing law entitled him to a parole hearing during his 25th year of incarceration.

The decision in Franklin failed to answer the question of what would happen to juvenile One Strike sex criminals like Contreras, who are denied such hearings.

The state high court's majority noted that the law excluding One Strike criminals meant that juveniles convicted of special circumstance murder and sentenced to life without parole would be eligible for a youth offender parole hearing during their 25th year, while sex criminals would not.

The Contreras decision described this as "at odds" with the Supreme Court's observation in Graham that defendants who do not kill are less deserving of the most serious forms of punishment.

"The parties point to no other provision of our Penal Code, and we are aware of none, that treats a nonhomicide offense more harshly than special circumstance murder," Liu wrote.

"Graham was saying you can't decide someone as incorrigible at the outset, and that can't be determined by the Legislature," said defense attorney Daniel Kessler of Kessler & Seecof LLP, who argued the Contreras case before the state Supreme Court. "I argued that if Franklin and my client shared a cell, my client would have to sit in prison 25 more years after Franklin had his first parole hearing."

Deputy Attorney General Steven T. Oetting, who argued before the case, referred a request for comment to the state Department of Justice press office, which said it was reviewing the opinion.

Kessler said the decision is meaningful in that the convicts would have parole hearings in midlife rather than waiting until age 60, when they would be eligible for the state's elderly parole program.

This program grants parole hearings to older inmates, who have a "reduced risk for future violence," but was cited by Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye in her dissent as a flaw in the majority's reasoning. Justice Carol Corrigan and 2nd District Court of Appeal Justice Sandy R. Kriegler, filling in a vacant seat on the high court, concurred with the chief justice.

"The majority fails to properly account for legislation and regulations that afford defendants William Rodriguez and Leonel Contreras an initial opportunity for parole no later than when they reach the age of 60," Cantil-Sakauye wrote.

"These measures take defendants' sentences outside of Graham's purview even under the majority's mistaken approach to that decision," she added. "Defendants' sentences do not violate the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and I would so hold."

Hinging a decision underpinned by the "hallmark features of youth" on a parole program designed for the elderly is a troubling approach, said L. Richard Braucher of the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center, who submitted an amicus brief for the convicts.

"It seems absurd to get around this by saying this is not really a de facto life without parole sentence because these defendants could receive parole as very old men," Braucher said.

Though there are a very limited number of juvenile criminals who fall into the One Strike category, said professor Christopher Hawthorne of Loyola Law School, offering more parole opportunities to sex criminals is a political "third rail" that few lawmakers will be eager to touch.

The Supreme Court did not offer superior courts a huge amount of guidance, Hawthorne said, but he speculated that similar cases in the appellate pipeline will now go back to superior courts for rehearing.

"There will be a lot of litigation until the Legislature acts," Hawthorne said.