In re Lawrence

• Citation: 190 P.3d 535,82 Cal.Rptr.3d 169
• Decision Date: 21 August 2008
• Docket Number: No. S154018.,S154018.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Parties: In re Sandra Davis LAWRENCE on Habeas Corpus.

190 P.3d 535

82 Cal.Rptr.3d 169

In re Sandra Davis LAWRENCE on Habeas Corpus.

No. S154018.

Supreme Court of California.

August 21, 2008.

Carrie L. Hempel, Michael J. Brennan and Heidi L. Rummel, Los Angeles, for Petitioner Sandra Davis Lawrence.

Munger, Tolles & Olson, Blanca F. Young, San Francisco, and Hailyn J. Chen, Los Angeles, for Stanford Criminal Justice Center as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioner Sandra Davis Lawrence.

Sean Kennedy, Federal Defender (Central District), Daniel Broderick, Federal Defender (Eastern District) and Monica Knox, Assistant Federal Defender, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioner Sandra Davis Lawrence.

Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorneys General, Mary Jo Graves and Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorneys General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, J. Conrad Schroeder, Jennifer A. Neill, Gregory J. Marcot and Anya M. Binsacca, Deputy Attorneys General, for Respondent State of California.

John R. Poyner, District Attorney (Colusa); Bonnie M. Dumanis, District Attorney (San Diego); Albert C. Locher, Assistant District Attorney (Sacramento); Richard J. Sachs, Deputy District Attorney (San Diego); and W. Scott Thorpe for California District Attorneys Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Respondent State of California.

GEORGE, C.J.

In 1971, Sandra Davis Lawrence (petitioner) murdered her lover's wife, Rubye Williams. Petitioner fled the state, remaining a fugitive until 1982, when she voluntarily returned to California and surrendered to the authorities. Petitioner declined a plea offer that would have resulted in a two-year prison sentence. After the jury returned a guilty verdict on a charge of first degree murder, the trial court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment—the statutory penalty for murders committed prior to November 8, 1978—and set a minimum eligible parole date of November 29, 1990.

In August 2005, after numerous hearings before the Board of Parole Hearings (the Board),¹ that entity for the fourth time found petitioner suitable for parole and set a parole date. In finding petitioner suitable for parole, the Board emphasized the presence of multiple statutory factors favoring suitability, including petitioner's exemplary record of rehabilitation, her acceptance of responsibility for the crime, her realistic parole plans, and her close ties to her family, who would offer her support in reintegrating into the community.

The Governor, however, as he had done previously, found that the gravity of the commitment offense indicated petitioner remained unsuitable for parole, and reversed the Board's decision. In an original petition for writ of habeas corpus filed in the Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, petitioner challenged on several grounds the Governor's decision denying parole. Finding the Governor lacked "some evidence" upon which to conclude, consistently with state and federal constitutional standards, that petitioner's release on parole would represent an "unreasonable risk" of danger to the community, the Court of Appeal in a split decision issued a writ vacating the Governor's reversal and reinstating the Board's 2005 grant of a parole release to petitioner.

We granted review to consider the Attorney General's contention that the Court of Appeal improperly applied the highly deferential "some evidence" standard of review set forth in our decision in In re Rosenkrantz (2002) 29 Cal.4th 616, 128 Cal.Rptr.2d 104, 59 P.3d 174 (Rosenkrantz) and later applied in In re Dannenberg (2005) 34 Cal.4th 1061, 23 Cal.Rptr.3d 417, 104 P.3d 783 (Dannenberg). The Attorney General disputes the appellate court's view that in order to uphold the Governor's decision, there must be some evidence demonstrating that petitioner remains a current threat to public safety, rather than merely some evidence supporting the Governor's characterization of the commitment offense as particularly egregious. For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that because the core statutory determination entrusted to the Board and the Governor is whether the inmate poses a current threat to public safety, the standard of review properly is characterized as whether "some evidence" supports the conclusion that the inmate is unsuitable for parole because he or she currently is dangerous. Moreover, with regard to the aggravated circumstances of a commitment offense, we conclude that to the extent our decisions in Rosenkrantz and Dannenberg have been read to imply that a particularly egregious commitment offense always will provide the requisite modicum of evidence supporting the Board's or the Governor's decision, this assumption is inconsistent with the statutory mandate that the Board and the Governor consider all relevant statutory factors when evaluating an inmate's suitability for parole, and inconsistent with the inmate's due process liberty interest in parole that we recognized in Rosenkrantz. (Rosenkrantz, supra, 29 Cal.4th at p. 664, 128 Cal. Rptr.2d 104, 59 P.3d 174.) In some cases, such as this one, in which evidence of the inmate's rehabilitation and suitability for parole under the governing statutes and regulations is overwhelming, the only evidence related to unsuitability is the gravity of the commitment offense, and that offense is both temporally remote and mitigated by circumstances indicating the conduct is unlikely to recur, the immutable circumstance that the commitment offense involved aggravated conduct does not provide "some evidence" inevitably supporting the ultimate decision that the inmate remains a threat to public safety.

Applying the "some evidence" standard to the case presently before us, we agree with the Court of Appeal that the record fails to support the Governor's conclusion that petitioner remains a current danger to public safety. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal rendered in favor of petitioner.²

I

The facts underlying the commitment offense and the history of petitioner's parole hearings are not in dispute. The following summary is taken from the Court of Appeal's lengthy and thorough statement of the facts.

A

Petitioner was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, the youngest of 12 children. Following her graduation from high school, she moved to Chicago, where she married and had two children. After her marriage dissolved due to her husband's infidelity and her own immaturity, petitioner relocated to Los Angeles, where several of her siblings resided. She took a position as a receptionist in her brother's dental office, where she met and began a romantic affair with Robert Williams, a married dentist employed by her brother. Williams's wife, the victim Rubye Williams, was aware of the affair. She frequently confronted both petitioner and her husband about the relationship in telephone calls and notes left on the front door of the apartment that Dr. Williams rented for petitioner.

Dr. Williams repeatedly told petitioner he would divorce his wife and marry her. When he failed to follow through with any of these promises, however, petitioner terminated the relationship in late 1970, ceasing all contact with Dr. Williams. On February 10, 1971, petitioner was celebrating her 24th birthday at a family party held at her brother's home, when Dr. Williams unexpectedly arrived, uninvited. He announced that he intended to leave his wife and return to petitioner. During the next few days, petitioner and Dr. Williams planned their romantic and professional future together, which was to include petitioner's obtaining certification as a dental assistant in order to assist Dr. Williams in the new dental practice he was then in the process of opening.

On February 13, 1971, however, Williams telephoned petitioner and told her he had changed his mind; he could not bear losing his children, and hence would remain with his wife. During the conversation, he mentioned Mrs. Williams would be helping him set up his new dental practice, and that she was at that time present at the new office waiting for the delivery of some equipment.

Petitioner was enraged with Dr. Williams, but as she subsequently recognized in therapy sessions with prison psychologists, she instead took out this anger on Mrs. Williams, perceiving her as an obstacle to the relationship. She drove to Dr. Williams's new dental office. Anticipating a possible confrontation with Mrs. Williams in light of previous highly charged encounters, she stopped at her sister's home to acquire a pistol and a potato peeler. When she arrived at the office, the two women argued and physically struggled, pushed, threw punches, and at one point wrestled on the floor. At some point, petitioner produced the firearm. She fired wildly at Mrs. Williams, wounding her in the hand, arm, leg, and neck, and then stabbed her repeatedly with the potato peeler. Mrs. Williams died as a result of the gunshot wounds.

Petitioner returned to her sister's home and replaced the pistol under the mattress. A few weeks later, petitioner's sister discovered the pistol had been fired. She contacted the police and reported the handgun had been used and not by her or anyone in her household. She also informed the police that petitioner had told family members that petitioner had killed Mrs. Williams as a birthday present to herself.

The authorities did not immediately investigate petitioner's involvement in Mrs. Williams's death, and petitioner moved to Chicago, Illinois with her children. A few weeks later, petitioner's family telephoned to tell her that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had informed them there existed a fugitive warrant for her arrest, arising from the death of Mrs. Williams. Petitioner left her children with their father in Chicago and flew back to Los Angeles, but during the flight she decided against turning herself in. She instead fled by bus to Las Vegas, Nevada. In the ensuing years, she resided in Puerto Rico, New York, and Pennsylvania, and...