People v. Peterson, B090670

• Decision Date: 12 December 1995
• Docket Number: No. B090670,B090670
• Citation: 40 Cal.App.4th 1479,48 Cal.Rptr.2d 318
• Parties: Previously published at 40 Cal.App.4th 1479, 45 Cal.App.4th 181, 49 Cal.App.4th 1810 40 Cal.App.4th 1479, 45 Cal.App.4th 181, 49 Cal.App.4th 1810, 95 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9509, 95 Daily Journal D.A.R. 16,471 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Samuel Joseph PETERSON, Defendant and Respondent.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 318

48 Cal.Rptr.2d 318

Previously published at 40 Cal.App.4th 1479, 45 Cal.App.4th 181, 49 Cal.App.4th 1810

40 Cal.App.4th 1479, 45 Cal.App.4th 181, 49 Cal.App.4th 1810,

95 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9509,

95 Daily Journal D.A.R. 16,471

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Samuel Joseph PETERSON, Defendant and Respondent.

No. B090670.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

Dec. 12, 1995.

Review Granted March 21, 1996.

Review Transferred Dec. 10, 1997.

Gil Garcetti, District Attorney, Brent Riggs and Joseph N. Sorrentino, Deputy District Attorneys, Los Angeles, for plaintiff and appellant.

Angelyn Gates, Los Angeles, for defendant and respondent.

FUKUTO, Associate Justice.

Following a jury trial, defendant Samuel Joseph Peterson was convicted of kidnapping during the commission of a carjacking, a crime punishable by imprisonment in state prison for life with possibility of parole (Pen.Code, § 209.5, subd. (a)), and was found to have personally used a firearm in committing that offense. (Pen.Code, § 12022.5.) Thereafter, the trial court denied defendant's motion challenging the constitutionality of using a juvenile adjudication as a "strike" for purposes of sentence enhancement and found beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant had suffered a prior felony conviction. (Pen.Code, § 667, subd. (d)(3).) ¹

Despite its finding, the court struck the prior conviction allegation in the interest of justice under Penal Code section 1385, opining it was empowered to do so by the retroactive application of Proposition 184 (Pen.Code, § 1170.12); in the alternative, the court reasoned that sentencing defendant as "required by the three strikes law on a second strike based upon [a] juvenile prior" would constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the state and federal Constitutions. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 17; U.S. Const., 8th Amend.) The effect of the court's action was to render defendant eligible for parole in seven years (Pen.Code, § 3046) rather than fourteen years, as would have been the case had the court doubled the minimum term of defendant's indeterminate sentence in accordance with the "three strikes" law. (Pen.Code, § 667, subd. (e)(1).)

The People have appealed pursuant to Penal Code section 1238, subdivision (a)(10), contending the trial court repudiated the clear legislative intent manifested in the "three strikes" law and imposed an unlawful sentence. We agree and hold that: I. Juvenile adjudications may be used to enhance sentences notwithstanding the absence of a jury trial. II. Proposition 184 did not change the "three strikes" law as enacted by the Legislature. III. Doubling the minimum term of defendant's indeterminate sentence does not constitute cruel and/or unusual punishment.

FACTS

Viewed in the light most favorable to the judgment as required by the usual rule governing appellate review (People v. Ceja (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1134, 1138, 17 Cal.Rptr.2d 375, 847 P.2d 55), the evidence established that shortly after midnight on March 9, 1994, 19-year-old Matthias Kaczorowski, who had been driving his friend's pick-up truck, parked the vehicle in front of the motorcycle shop where his friend worked. After Kaczorowski exited the truck, defendant and a juvenile approached him. Defendant was wielding a firearm and threatened to shoot Kaczorowski if he did not get into the truck and start it. Kaczorowski complied. Defendant seated himself next to Kaczorowski and the juvenile sat in the back seat.

Defendant directed Kaczorowski at gunpoint to drive to the Glendale Galleria so defendant could carjack another vehicle at that location. As a result of defendant's erroneous instructions, however, the trio ended up in Pasadena rather than Glendale. While Kaczorowski was waiting at a light on Fair Oaks Avenue, the police, having been notified of the carjacking, pulled up behind Acquiescing to defendant's demands, Kaczorowski drove away from the officers. In so doing, he became engaged in a high speed pursuit involving several police units. He reached speeds in excess of 85 miles per hour and at one point turned the wrong way on a one-way street at defendant's insistence. The chase through the Pasadena city streets ended when Kaczorowski collided with a police car. Defendant was taken into custody and a loaded .38-caliber revolver with a cocked hammer was recovered from under the right front passenger seat.

Kaczorowski with their overhead lights activated and, utilizing their "P.A. system," ordered him to stop. Kaczorowski turned off the ignition, but defendant ordered him to take off or be shot. Defendant also threatened to shoot Kaczorowski if he slowed down, crashed or if defendant was caught.

Although Kaczorowski did not detect and the police could not recall observing any physical manifestations that defendant was under the influence of alcohol during the early morning hours of March 9, defendant presented evidence that he was severely intoxicated and suffering from an alcoholic blackout at that time and therefore lacked the ability to form the specific intent required to commit the crime with which he was charged.

DISCUSSION

I. Constitutionality of Utilizing a Juvenile Adjudication as a Prior Conviction

Penal Code section 667, subdivision (d)(3) specifies that "[a] prior juvenile adjudication shall constitute a prior felony conviction for purposes of sentence enhancement if: [p] (A) [t]he juvenile was 16 years of age or older at the time he or she committed the prior offense[;] [p] (B) [t]he prior offense is listed in subdivision (b) of Section 707 of the Welfare and Institutions Code or described in paragraph (1) or (2) [of subdivision (d) of Penal Code section 667] as a felony[;] [p] (C) [t]he juvenile was found to be a fit and proper subject to be dealt with under the juvenile court law[; and] [p] (D) [t]he juvenile was adjudged a ward of the juvenile court within the meaning of Section 602 of the Welfare and Institutions Code because the person committed an offense listed in subdivision (b) of Section 707 of the Welfare and Institutions Code."

In disputing the constitutionality of the foregoing provisions, defendant unsuccessfully argued below:

"The Due Process clauses exist to assure fundamental fairness when citizens' liberty is at stake. The rights afforded juveniles and the procedure used in juvenile courts are not the same as criminal courts. An example of these differences is their lack of the right to a jury trial. The focus of juvenile court is very different from that of our adult criminal courts. The procedures in juvenile court have been found constitutional due to this difference. In fact the courts have justified the juvenile system procedures and held they do not have to conform to requirements of criminal tr[ia]ls by declaring that they are not criminal prosecutions.

"Since the procedures under which defendant acquired this 'prior' did not afford him the rights he would have had as an adult, the use of a 'conviction' in juvenile court violates the fundamental fairness aspect of the due process clauses.

"Additionally, because the new section permits this juvenile prior to enhance a sentence in the same fashion as an adult prior, defendant is being deprived of equal protection. A defendant with an adult prior was afforded the rights defendant was denied. The adult-prior defendant was treated differently than defendant Peterson. As a class, then, these juvenile offenders are being treated to their disadvantage merely because they are juveniles. While the adult-prior defendant was given a jury trial, the minor defendant was not. However, they both are being punished to the same respect through the new 667 section."

The issues raised by defendant have not yet been definitively settled in the context of California's "three strikes" law. Nonetheless, it has long been assumed in this state that a trial court may consider "a defendant's juvenile record for purposes of enhanced adult sentencing." (People v. Lucky (1988) Like California, appellate courts in many other state and federal jurisdictions have concluded prior nonjury juvenile delinquency adjudications may be used to enhance a defendant's adult sentence without violating due process. (See Annot., Consideration of Accused's Juvenile Court Record in Sentencing for Offense Committed As Adult (1975) 64 A.L.R.3d 1291, 1295-1304, and later cases (1995 pocket supp.) pp. 98-100; Owens, California's Three Strikes Law: Desperate Times Require Desperate Measures-But Will It Work? (1995) 26 Pacific L.J. 881, 912-915; Feld, Juvenile Court Legislative Reform and the Serious Young Offender: Dismantling the "Rehabilitative Ideal" (1981) 65 Minn.L.Rev. 167, 233, 237.) In contrast with California, however, not all of the states allowing juvenile court records to be taken into account for purposes of determining whether to aggravate or mitigate a defendant's adult sentence permit those same juvenile adjudications to be considered as prior felony convictions within the purview of their habitual criminal statutes. (See, e.g., Gahley v. State (Fla.App.1992) 605 So.2d 1309; Pickens v. State (Ala.Crim.App.1985) 475 So.2d 637, 639; Fletcher v. State (Del.Supr.1979) 409 A.2d 1254; People v. McIntire (1967) 7 Mich.App. 133, 151 N.W.2d 187.) Nevertheless, we have located no reported cases from any jurisdiction in which habitual criminal statutory schemes have been declared constitutionally infirm because they permit certain prior juvenile adjudications to be relied upon as predicate felony convictions for habitual offender classification. On the contrary, the Illinois Supreme Court has rejected the notion that that state's Habitual Juvenile Offender Act is constitutionally defective because it failed "to require that trial by jury be afforded at the proceedings which resulted in the two prior adjudications upon which application of the Act is predicated." (People ex rel. Carey v. Chrastka (1980) 83 Ill.2d 67, 46...