Opinion
A158914
06-25-2020
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. VALLIENT CHARLES MOORE, Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Alameda County Super. Ct. Nos. C143021, C145313)
Defendant Vallient Moore was charged with the 2002 murder of another man. The following year, Moore pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to six years in prison, concurrent to a 35-years-to-life sentence he was already serving for unrelated crimes.
The indeterminate sentence was imposed in case no. C143021, in which Moore was convicted of robbery and assault. This division affirmed the judgment in 2004. (People v. Moore (Apr. 29, 2004, A102720) [nonpub. opn.].)
The Legislature subsequently enacted Senate Bill No. 1437 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.) (Senate Bill No. 1437) (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015), which altered liability for murder under the theories of felony murder and natural and probable consequences. The bill also established a procedure, under newly enacted Penal Code section 1170.95, for eligible defendants to petition for recall and resentencing. Moore filed a petition for relief, and the trial court denied it on the basis that section 1170.95 is inapplicable to defendants convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
All further statutory references are to the Penal Code.
On appeal, Moore claims that section 1170.95 must be interpreted to apply to manslaughter convictions. We disagree and follow the other courts that have concluded that the statute does not by its plain terms apply to defendants convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Therefore, we affirm.
I.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL
BACKGROUND
Son Vo was found dead, "bound and stabbed," in an Oakland park in March 2002. Multiple witnesses identified Moore as the person who attacked and bound Vo and transported him to the park. Later that year, Moore was charged in case no. C145313 with murder, accompanied by the allegation that he personally used a knife during the offense. Various sentencing enhancements based on three prior strikes were also alleged.
These facts about Vo's killing are drawn from an arrest warrant affidavit that accompanied the complaint, as Moore entered his plea before a preliminary hearing was held.
The murder charge was brought under section 187, subdivision (a), and the weapon enhancement was alleged under section 12022, subdivision (b)(1).
In June 2003, as part of a plea agreement, Moore pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter, and all the enhancement allegations were dismissed. At the same hearing, the trial court sentenced him to the midterm of six years in prison, to be served concurrently with the indeterminate sentence in case no. C143021.
In July 2019, soon after Senate Bill No. 1437 went into effect, Moore filed a petition under section 1170.95, arguing that he was entitled to relief because he "plead[ed] guilty to Voluntary Manslaughter, fearing that [he] might be convicted after trial [pursuant] to the Felony Murder rule or natural and probable consequences doctrine." The trial court summarily denied the petition, concluding that Moore was ineligible for relief because he was not convicted of murder.
Moore filed the petition in case no. C143021, the robbery and assault case, and the trial court denied it in August 2019 because he was not even charged with murder in that case. That October, after realizing that Moore meant to seek resentencing in case no. C145313, the court entered an amended order denying the petition.
II.
DISCUSSION
A. Senate Bill No. 1437
"Effective January 1, 2019, Senate Bill [No.] 1437 amended murder liability under the felony-murder and natural and probable consequences theories. The bill redefined malice under section 188 to require that the principal acted with malice aforethought. Now, '[m]alice shall not be imputed to a person based solely on his or her participation in a crime.' (§ 188, subd. (a)(3).)" (People v. Turner (2020) 45 Cal.App.5th 428, 433 (Turner).) The bill also amended section 189 to provide that a defendant who was not the actual killer and did not have an intent to kill is not liable for felony murder unless he or she "was a major participant in the underlying felony and acted with reckless indifference to human life, as described in subdivision (d) of Section 190.2." (§ 189, subd. (e)(3).)
Senate Bill No. 1437 also enacted section 1170.95, which authorizes "[a] person convicted of felony murder or murder under a natural and probable consequences theory [to] file a petition with the court that sentenced the petitioner to have the petitioner's murder conviction vacated and to be resentenced on any remaining counts" so long as three conditions are met: "(1) A complaint, information, or indictment was filed against the petitioner that allowed the prosecution to proceed under a theory of felony murder or murder under the natural and probable consequences doctrine. [¶] (2) The petitioner was convicted of first degree or second degree murder following a trial or accepted a plea offer in lieu of a trial at which the petitioner could be convicted for first degree or second degree murder. [¶] (3) The petitioner could not be convicted of first or second degree murder because of changes to Section 188 or 189 made effective January 1, 2019." (§ 1170.95, subd. (a).) Any petition that fails to make "a prima facie showing that the petitioner falls within the provisions of [section 1170.95]" may be denied without a hearing. (§ 1170.95, subds. (c) & (d).)
B. Section 1170.95 Does Not Apply to Defendants Convicted of Voluntary Manslaughter.
Moore claims that section 1170.95 authorizes defendants who were convicted of voluntary manslaughter after being charged with murder on a natural and probable consequences theory to petition for relief. For purposes of this appeal, we will assume, without deciding, that Moore can establish that he could no longer be convicted of a homicide offense after Senate Bill No. 1437. We conclude that petitioners convicted of voluntary manslaughter are categorically ineligible for relief under section 1170.95.
As a result, we do not address Moore's challenge to the trial court's alternate basis for denying the petition, that Moore necessarily admitted that he intended to kill or acted with conscious disregard of human life by pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter. --------
Moore's eligibility for relief under section 1170.95 is a question of law that we review de novo. (People v. Prunty (2015) 62 Cal.4th 59, 71; Turner, supra, 45 Cal.App.5th at p. 435.) " ' "As in any case involving statutory interpretation, our fundamental task here is to determine the Legislature's intent so as to effectuate the law's purpose." ' " (People v. Scott (2014) 58 Cal.4th 1415, 1421.) We first consider the statutory language, " ' "giving [it] a plain and commonsense meaning." ' " (Ibid.) " ' " 'When [that] language . . . is clear, we need go no further.' [Citation.] But where a statute's terms are unclear or ambiguous, we may 'look to a variety of extrinsic aids, including the ostensible objects to be achieved, the evils to be remedied, the legislative history, public policy, contemporaneous administrative construction, and the statutory scheme of which the statute is a part.' " ' " (Ibid.)
Section 1170.95 allows "[a] person convicted of felony murder or murder under a natural and probable consequences theory" to file a petition "to have the petitioner's murder conviction vacated." (§ 1170.95, subd. (a), italics added.) And should the trial court find that the petitioner has made a prima facie showing of entitlement to relief and issue an order to show cause, it "shall hold a hearing to determine whether to vacate the murder conviction and to recall the sentence" (§ 1170.95, subd. (d)(1), italics added), unless the parties "waive a resentencing hearing and stipulate that the petitioner is eligible to have his or her murder conviction vacated." (§ 1170.95, subd. (d)(2), italics added.)
Relying on the italicized language, the Second and Fourth District Courts of Appeal have concluded that a person convicted of manslaughter is not entitled to relief under section 1170.95's plain terms. (People v. Sanchez (2020) 48 Cal.App.5th 914, 916; Turner, supra, 45 Cal.App.5th at p. 432; People v. Flores (2020) 44 Cal.App.5th 985, 993; People v. Cervantes (2020) 44 Cal.App.5th 884, 887.) Using similar reasoning, appellate courts have concluded that section 1170.95 does not apply to a person convicted of attempted murder. (E.g., People v. Medrano (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 1001, 1017, review granted Mar. 11, 2020, S259948; People v. Lopez (2019) 38 Cal.App.5th 1087, 1104, review granted Nov. 13, 2019, S258175.)
Moore fails to discuss any of the cases holding that section 1170.95 does not apply to those convicted of voluntary manslaughter, stating only in his reply brief that "those cases were wrongly decided." Although he claims that he meets the requirement for relief under subdivision (a)(2) of the statute because he " 'accepted a plea offer in lieu of a trial at which [he] could be convicted for first degree or second degree murder,' " he offers no rationale for why that language should be read to include petitioners convicted of voluntary manslaughter despite the statute's numerous other references to murder convictions.
Instead, Moore makes much of the Legislature's findings and declarations in enacting Senate Bill No. 1437, including its finding of "a need for statutory changes to more equitably sentence offenders in accordance with their involvement in homicides." (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 1, subd. (b).) Observing that the term "homicide" includes both murder and voluntary manslaughter, Moore claims the legislation "was intended to apply to all 'homicide' convictions under the natural and probable consequences doctrine." Putting aside the fact that such uncodified findings and declarations do not trump a statute's plain language, elsewhere the ones at issue also refer only to murder, not homicide more generally. (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 1, subds. (f) [felony murder rule and "natural and probable consequences doctrine, as it relates to murder," must be changed to limit "murder liability"], (g) ["[a] person's culpability for murder must be premised upon that person's own actions and subjective mens rea"].) And as the Fourth District explained in Turner, the legislative history of Senate Bill No. 1437 as a whole confirms that the Legislature did not intend to include those convicted of manslaughter. (Turner, supra, 45 Cal.App.5th at pp. 436-438.) We find Turner's reasoning on this point persuasive, and Moore offers us no reason to depart from it.
Finally, we reject Moore's claim that interpreting section 1170.95 to exclude those convicted of manslaughter will lead to absurd results. He argues that it is "fundamentally unfair . . . to conclude that the Legislature intended [Senate Bill No.] 1437 to reverse murder convictions but not lesser included convictions based on the exact same set of facts." Again, we find Turner persuasive on this point. As that decision explained, interpreting section 1170.95 to exclude those convicted of manslaughter does not "produce absurdity by undermining the Legislature's goal to calibrate punishment to culpability. The punishment for manslaughter is already less than that imposed for first or second degree murder, and the determinate sentencing ranges of 3, 6, or 11 years for voluntary manslaughter and two, three[,] or four years for involuntary manslaughter permit a sentencing judge to make punishment commensurate with a defendant's culpability based on aggravating and mitigating factors. [Citations.] Providing relief solely to defendants convicted of murder under a felony-murder or natural and probable consequences theory does not conflict with the Legislature's stated objective to make 'statutory changes to more equitably sentence offenders in accordance with their involvement in homicides.' " (Turner, supra, 45 Cal.App.5th at p. 439, quoting Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 1, subd. (b).)
We recognize that barring defendants who entered a plea to voluntary manslaughter from pursuing relief under section 1170.95 might lead to situations in which they receive longer sentences than they would have had they gone to trial and been convicted of murder. Here, however, the concurrent term Moore received for voluntary manslaughter under the plea bargain effectively added no time to the indeterminate sentence he was already serving. In any event, "[t]he remedy for any potentially inequitable operation of section 1170.95 lies with the Legislature," not with this court, as we are bound to follow its clear intent to provide relief only to those convicted of murder. (People v. Munoz (2019) 39 Cal.App.5th 738, 760, review granted Nov. 26, 2019, S258234; see Turner, supra, 45 Cal.App.5th at pp. 440-441.)
III.
DISPOSITION
The October 17, 2019 order denying Moore's section 1170.95 petition is affirmed.
/s/_________
Humes, P.J. WE CONCUR: /s/_________
Margulies, J. /s/_________
Sanchez, J.