Opinion
S267812
06-09-2021
PEOPLE v. JACKSON (JOSEPH LEON)
D077095 Fourth Appellate District, Div. 1.
The petition for review is denied.
Concurring Statement by Justice Liu
Joseph Leon Jackson shot and killed two people when he was 19 years old, and he was sentenced to two terms of life without the possibility of parole, among other sentences, in 1998. Over two decades later, Jackson sought a youth offender parole hearing under Penal Code section 3051. (All undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.) The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's denial of this hearing, holding that section 3051 did not violate equal protection by excluding from a youth offender parole hearing people who were between 18 and 25 years old when they committed an offense for which they were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. (People v. Jackson (2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 189, 195-200 (Jackson).) Another case, denied review today, raises similar issues. (People v. Acosta (2021) 60 Cal.App.5th 769, 774-782, review den. June 9, 2021, S267783 (Acosta).)
I continue to believe section 3051's parole eligibility scheme is in tension with equal protection of the laws. (See People v. Montelongo (2020) 55 Cal.App.5th 1016, 1041a-1041c [274 Cal.Rptr.3d 267, 288-290] (conc. stmt. of Liu, J.) (Montelongo).) This scheme excludes certain people from youth offender parole hearings depending on the crime they committed, even though “the mitigating attributes of youth are not” crime-specific.'” (Id.at p. 1041a (conc. stmt. of Liu, J.), quoting Miller v. Alabama(2012) 567 U.S. 460, 473.) And it excludes certain 18- to-25-year-olds from these hearings, even though the Legislature has recognized that these mitigating attributes “are found in young adults up to age 25” and “that the ordinary process of neurological and cognitive development continues for several years past age18.” (Montelongo, at pp. 1041b, 1041c [274 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 290 (conc. stmt. of Liu, J.).)
The Legislature has enacted important reforms in this area and can do so again. It can, as the high court recently observed, “categorically prohibit life without parole,” “require sentencers to make extra factual findings before sentencing,” “direct sentencers to formally explain on the record why a life-without-parole sentence is appropriate notwithstanding the defendant's youth,” or “establish rigorous proportionality or other substantive appellate review of life-without-parole sentences.” (Jones v. Mississippi(2021) 593 U.S. ___, ___ [141 S.Ct. 1307, 1323].) In other words, the Legislature may require an individualized, on-the-record finding of irreparable corruption before sentencing a defendant to life without parole. Or it can altogether eliminate life without the possibility of parole for youth offenders - a category the Legislature, relying on science, has defined to include persons between 18 and 25 years old - by making all such life inmates eligible for a youth offender parole hearing.
As of this writing, at least 11 justices of the Court of Appeal have called for legislative reconsideration of section 3051. (In re Murray(2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 184, 192-193 (maj. opn. of Richman, Acting P. J., joined by Stewart and Miller, JJ.); Jackson, supra, 61 Cal.App.5th at pp. 201-202 (conc. opn. of Dato, J.); Acosta, supra, 60 Cal.App.5th at p. 781 (maj. opn. of Goethals, J., joined by Bedsworth, Acting P. J.); Montelongo, supra, 55 Cal.App.5th at p. 1041 (conc. Opn. of Segal, J.); In re Jones (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 477, 486-487 (conc. opn. of Pollak, P. J., joined by Streeter, J.); People v. Escamilla (Mar. 18, 2021, F077568) [nonpub. opn.] (maj. opn. of Meehan, J., joined by DeSantos, J.); see also In re Williams(2020) 57 Cal.App.5th 427, 436, fn. 7 [acknowledging statutory tension]; People v. Smith(Feb. 24, 2021, B305527) [nonpub. opn.] [same].) I again echo my colleagues in “invit[ing] the Legislature to reconsider whether our evolving knowledge of brain development suggests that unalterable judgments about individuals based on what they did between age 18 and 25 may be unjustifiable.” (Jackson, at pp. 201-202 (conc. opn. of Dato, J.).)
LIU, J.