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Court of Appeal:
Judge, in Habeas Proceeding, Need Not Reexamine All Aspects of Sentence
Hoffstadt’s Opinion Says Judge Properly Confined Attention to Enhancements Rendered Unauthorized by Retroactive Statute
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday rejected the contention that a trial judge, in granting habeas relief to the extent of striking firearms enhancements based on recent legislation, was required to reexamine all aspects of the sentence.
Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt of Div. Two authored the opinion which affirms an order by Los Angeles District Court Judge Daniel B. Feldstern shaving 38 years and four months off the sentence of murderer/robber Miguel Alberto Esquivias. Feldstern properly confined his attention to the firearms enhancements, the jurist said, declaring:
“[D]efendant argues that once the court agreed to revisit one part of his sentence, it was obligated to revisit his entire sentence—and vacate his underlying convictions—in light of new laws that took effect after his convictions became final. He is wrong. Habeas review is issue specific…, and the trial court here understandably limited its review to only those enhancements affected by the new law retroactively applicable to defendant’s conviction. Defendant’s proffered ‘revisit-any-on-habeas, revisit-all-on-habeas’ rule is inconsistent with these fundamental tenets of habeas review, is inconsistent with our Legislature’s express intent to make only certain new laws fully retroactive, and is likely to discourage trial courts from revisiting any part of a sentence on habeas—thereby harming defendants.”
Exception to Finality
Hoffstadt explained that, in general, once a sentence is final, a trial court lacks jurisdiction to alter it. An exception, he said, is altering a sentence that is unauthorized in response to a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
A finding that a prima facie case has been made for reexamining one aspect of the sentence does not compel reconsideration of all facets of the sentence, he said.
“By depriving trial courts of their longstanding discretion to tailor their exercise of habeas jurisdiction, we would be converting habeas from an elegant, issue-specific scalpel into a blunt, in for a penny, in for a pound; cudgel,” Hoffstadt remarked.
‘Cascading Retroactivity’
He went on to comment:
“[A] ‘revisit-any-on-habeas, revisit-all-on-habeas’ rule would inevitably lead to ‘cascading retroactivity’: Once a defendant shows an entitlement to retroactive relief under one ameliorative statute (because his criminal judgment was not final when that statute took effect), the court would be obligated to grant habeas review on the defendant’s entire sentence, which would render that entire sentence ‘nonfinal,’ which in turn would render the defendant eligible for retroactive relief under all ameliorative statutes enacted up to the time the court considers the defendant’s habeas petition.”
The jurist pointed out:
“When enacting statutes that grant criminal defendants ameliorative relief (that is, statutes that reduce sentences or add new elements to existing crimes or sentencing enhancements), our Legislature has the choice of whether to make them purely prospective, retroactively applicable to defendants whose convictions are not yet final, or fully retroactive to all defendants regardless of the finality of their convictions. By effectively making all ameliorative relief statutes fully retroactive, cascading retroactivity impermissibly rewrites the text of statutes and ignores legislative intent as to those statutes our Legislature opted not to make fully retroactive.”
This could harm defendants, he said, reasoning that, to avoid “cascading retroactivity,” a judge might decide to grant no relief, at all.
The case is People v. Esquivias, B329800.
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