People v. Crockett
| Decision Date | 19 February 2015 |
| Docket Number | C074342. |
| Citation | 234 Cal.App.4th 642 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. LEON WILSON CROCKETT, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Susan K. Shaler , under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Kamala D. Harris , Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell , Assistant Attorney General, Catherine Chatman and Michael Dolida , Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
In January 2013, defendant Leon Wilson Crockett filed a petition pursuant to Penal Code section 1170.1261 to recall his indeterminate life sentence. The statute, enacted as part of a November 2012 initiative measure, provides retrospective relief under narrow criteria from indeterminate life sentences imposed for recidivism. He alleged that he was eligible for resentencing because his February 2009 commitment convictions — corporal injury to a cohabitant, false imprisonment by means of force or violence (as a lesser offense of kidnapping), and assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury — were not "serious" or violent felonies (id., subd. (e)(1)), and neither his commitment convictions nor his other prior felony convictions came within any other disqualifying criteria (id., subd. (e)(2) & (3)). He asserted that the trial court as a result should resentence him to a determinate sentence of double the term otherwise applicable to his convictions (i.e., the same sentence defendant would receive under the prospective amendments to the recidivist sentencing statutes enacted as part of the same initiative). (Id., subd. (f); see § 667, subd. (e)(1).)2
The original sentencing judge presided over the matter. (§ 1170.126, subd. (b).) The court appointed counsel and invited opposition from the prosecutor. The prosecutor "determined that the defendant is eligible for recall of sentence ... and will therefore not object to the Court considering... re-sentencing." However, the prosecutor contended defendant presented an unreasonable risk of danger to the safety of the public and asked that he not be resentenced. (Id., subds. (f) & (g).) After considering the materials that the parties submitted and hearing testimony from defendant, the trial court exercised its discretion to deny the petition on the ground that defendant posed an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety. Defendant appealed.3
On appeal, the People now seek to raise the threshold question of whether in fact defendant is eligible for resentencing. We requested supplemental briefing from the People to explain why this issue should be cognizable in the first instance on appeal after they conceded defendant was eligible in the trial court (an analysis that was omitted from their brief). Procedurally, defendant argues he was entitled to have a jury determine the issue of unreasonable danger beyond a reasonable doubt, or have the court determine the issue either by that standard or by clear and convincing evidence. He also argues that whatever the burden of proof, the prosecution did not satisfy it. We shall affirm the judgment.
The record before the trial court was extremely limited. The pro se recall petition included only the abstract of judgment for defendant's commitment convictions. In opposition, the prosecutor included the probation report from the underlying trial (for purposes of establishing defendant's criminal history) and materials from prison officials regarding defendant's postcommitment conduct in prison. (§ 1170.126, subd. (g) [].) In response to the prosecution's submittal, defendant provided additional materials relating to his postcommitment conduct.
The prosecution's tactical choice not to contest defendant's eligibility makes us question whether the additional materials to which the parties refer on appeal played any part in the trial court's ruling (or indeed were even part of the trial record on the petition). Our opinion affirming defendant's commitment offenses (People v. Crockett (May 6, 2010, C061217) [nonpub. opn.]) appears in the record as an attachment to the remittitur for the prior appeal filed in the trial court, but neither the parties nor the trial court made reference to it in the petition proceedings. We have granted defendant's motion to incorporate the record in case No. C061217, but the record in the present case does not indicate affirmatively that at any point the parties submitted it to the trial court or that the trial court consulted it on its own motion (although, as noted, the trial judge had also presided over defendant's trial and presumably had some independent memory of it, which would be the apparent rationale for the statutory mandate to assign the petition to the sentencing court). We thus confine ourselves for the moment to the facts involving defendant's criminal history and postconviction behavior, and then return to these other materials in our discussion of eligibility.
As defendant admitted in his testimony at the recall petition hearing, his commitment convictions involved "violence against a woman and a young teenage boy [who] tried to intervene and help her."4 The trial court had sentenced defendant to indeterminate prison terms of 25 years to life on all three commitment convictions. It stayed execution of sentence (§ 654) on the convictions for false imprisonment and assault.
As summarized in the probation report in case No. C061217 (), his criminal history began as a juvenile in 1975 when he was 16. Between 1975 and 1977, he received stolen property, brandished a weapon, disturbed wildlife, committed burglary, and committed an assault (along with a battery and the obstruction of a peace officer) that resulted in his placement with the former California Youth Authority (CYA). The CYA discharged him from parole in 1978.
From 1981 to 1988, defendant committed over a dozen offenses resulting in either jail time or placement on a work program. These included convictions for being an accessory, counterfeiting, battery, employee embezzlement, burglary, hit and run, provoking a fight and possessing marijuana, possessing a prohibited weapon, and four separate instances of driving under the influence (one of which included obstructing a peace officer and another of which somehow also resulted in a conviction for recidivist petty theft).
In 1988, defendant was placed on probation for assault with a firearm and shooting at an occupied dwelling (the first two convictions qualifying him for his indeterminate life term); within a year, he had violated probation (driving while under the influence) and was sentenced in September 1989 to prison for three years. After release on parole in September 1990, he committed grand theft from the person in December 1990 (violating parole) and was also sentenced to prison for the theft in March 1991 for 16 months. In both March 1992 and January 1993, he violated parole within months after release and returned to custody. As a result of the January 1993 violation, he was sentenced in April 1993 to prison for six years for robbery involving the personal use of a knife (his third qualifying conviction). Paroled in March 1996, he once again returned to custody by the end of the year for an unspecified violation. He was found guilty in September 1997 of conspiring to commit burglary at some unspecified point in 1996 and was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was not again paroled until 2004. At that point, he incurred four unspecified violations of parole (and a May 2005 jail term for misdemeanor trespass) between 2004 and 2007, when he was discharged from parole in August. His commitment offenses occurred less than one year later.
On his commitment to prison, defendant received a level 3 classification, one below the most serious level. By the time of the petition hearing, his good behavior had earned a reduction to level 2, and he was eligible for double-cell or dorm housing without any restrictions. He had eschewed any involvement with prison gangs. Even though his term would last at least 25 years, he took advantage of educational and vocational programs. He went from being barely literate to earning A's and B's, and he earned certificates and commendations for completing the various courses. Recognizing that his commitment convictions were the result of his problems with alcohol, and that he had a lifelong problem with addiction to both alcohol and marijuana, he successfully completed addiction treatment courses, and planned to rely on sobriety programs outside of prison to prevent a relapse. He had not incurred any violations for possession of controlled substances or homemade alcohol, and did not have any positive results in random substance testing. He had received citations for five minor rule violations since his commitment: two for going "out of bounds" to and from his classroom, one for insubordination in the law library, one for "horseplay" with a cellmate, and one for "unlawfully seeking a privilege" in the law library.
In its oral ruling on the recall petition, the trial court commended defendant on his postcommitment conduct in prison, and encouraged him to continue his efforts in preparation for his ultimate release. The trial court also noted defendant's supportive large family living in the county. However, it pointed out that it was also required to consider his criminal history, including the types of crimes. It thus found that on the totality of the circumstances, defendant represented an unreasonable risk of danger to the public (citing, in particular, his abysmal failures on previous grants of probation and parole and...
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