People v. Superior Court of Riverside Cnty.

• Decision Date: 13 March 2017
• Docket Number: E067296
• Citation: 9 Cal.App.5th 753,215 Cal.Rptr.3d 456
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Riverside County, Respondent; Pablo Ullisses Lara, Jr., Real Party in Interest.

9 Cal.App.5th 753

215 Cal.Rptr.3d 456

The PEOPLE, Petitioner,

v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Riverside County, Respondent;Pablo Ullisses Lara, Jr., Real Party in Interest.

E067296

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

Filed March 13, 2017

Michael A. Hestrin, District Attorney, Donald W. Ostertag, Deputy District Attorney, for Petitioner.

No appearance for Respondent.

Steven S. Mitchell, Long Beach; Steven L. Harmon, Public Defender, Laura Arnold, Deputy Public Defender, for Real Party in Interest.

OPINION

RAMIREZ, P.J.

Having read and considered the petition, the informal response we requested, and additional briefing as described below, as well as the record provided by both parties, we conclude the petition lacks merit. Our order requesting an informal response notified the parties that "[t]he court may issue a peremptory writ in the first instance, or the court may deny the petition by a written opinion on the merits that determines a cause and constitutes law of the case." All parties received "due notice" (Code Civ. Proc., § 1088 ), and "it appears that the petition and opposing papers on file adequately address the issues raised by the petition, that no factual dispute exists, and that the additional briefing that would follow issuance of an alternative writ is unnecessary to disposition of the petition." (Palma v. U.S. Industrial Fasteners, Inc. (1984) 36 Cal.3d 171, 178, 203 Cal.Rptr. 626, 681 P.2d 893 (Palma ).) In reliance on these rules, and because we agree that the issue posed by the petition is an important one warranting speedy resolution, we now resolve the petition by way of a formal written opinion denying relief.

At the outset, we pause to explain the procedure we have utilized on this petition. We emphasize that we do not take this approach lightly, nor do we mean to imply an intention on our part to adopt this procedure as our routine practice. (See, e.g., Alexander v. Superior Court (1993) 5 Cal.4th 1218, 1223, 23 Cal.Rptr.2d 397, 859 P.2d 96 [urging courts not to allow the expedited Palma procedure to become routine], disapproved on other grounds as stated in Hassan v. Mercy American River Hospital (2003) 31 Cal.4th 709, 724, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 623, 74 P.3d 726 ; Ng v. Superior Court (1992) 4 Cal.4th 29, 34-35, 13 Cal.Rptr.2d 856, 840 P.2d 961 (Ng ) [same].) We acted as we did because this petition was particularly exigent, as explained post .

On November 8, 2016, the voters passed Proposition 57.¹ As relevant to this petition, Proposition 57 eliminated the People's ability to directly file charges against a juvenile offender in adult court and instead authorized the People to file "a motion to transfer the minor from juvenile court to a court of criminal jurisdiction." (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 707, subd. (a)(1).) Upon receiving such a motion, the juvenile court is to decide whether the minor should be transferred to adult court² based on statutorily-prescribed criteria. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 707, subd. (a)(2).)

Prior to the passage of Proposition 57, the People directly filed a complaint against real party in interest, a minor, in adult court under the authority of former section 707, subdivision (d)(2), of the Welfare and Institutions Code. A preliminary hearing occurred on May 26, 2016. On June 10, 2016, the People filed an information charging real party in interest with felony violations of Penal Code sections 209, subdivision (b)(1), 286, subdivision (c)(2)(B), and 288a, subdivision (c)(2)(B).

On November 16, 2016, real party in interest filed a motion requesting "a fitness hearing in juvenile court pursuant to recently enacted legislation via Proposition 57." After considering written opposition from the People, who argued Proposition 57 could not be applied to real party in interest's case retroactively, the trial court granted the motion on November 29, 2016. Noting that the issue was "novel," the trial court stayed its order until December 20, 2016, so the People could seek appellate intervention.

The People's petition in this case followed three days later on December 2, 2016. It sought an emergency stay and asserted there would be "widespread confusion and continued litigation" if the trial court's order in this case stood. In addition, the petition introduced evidence that there were 57 other direct-file cases pending, and that 10 motions to transfer to juvenile court had already been received. On December 16, 2016, we requested an informal response, which we received on December 20, 2016. Petitioner filed a reply on December 29, 2016.

On December 6, 2016, the People filed People v. Superior Court (Sanchez ) (case No. E067311) in this court. They raised the same issue raised in this petition, and, as they did in the petition in this case, requested an emergency stay. The petition asserted there were "widespread confusion, continued litigation, and jurisdictional and procedural uncertainties attendant with the trial court's order." On December 9, 2016, the People filed a separate motion for stay in Sanchez . That same day, we issued an order denying the request for stay but indicating we would resolve the merits of the petition by separate order. On December 16, 2016, we issued another order, this time that the Sanchez petition would be considered with the petition in this case, since they both raised identical issues. We also requested an informal response from the real party in interest in Sanchez . That response was filed on December 20, 2016; a reply followed on December 29, 2016.

On December 7, 2016, the People filed People v. Superior Court (Mayer ) (case No. E067326), which raised the same issues as this petition and Sanchez . The Mayer petition also requested an emergency stay, which we denied the following day. As we did in Sanchez , we indicated we would separately resolve the merits of the petition. On December 16, 2016, we ordered Mayer considered with this petition and requested an informal response. As in Sanchez , the response and reply were filed on December 20 and 29, 2016, respectively.

Next, the People filed People v. Superior Court (Negrete ) (case No. E067345) on December 9, 2017. As in the three previous petitions, they requested an emergency stay, which, on December 12, 2016, we denied indicating we would separately resolve the merits. On December 16, 2016, we ordered Negrete considered with this petition and requested an informal response. We again received a response on December 20, 2016, and a reply on December 29, 2016. The four responses and replies filed on December 20 and 29, 2016, are substantially identical.

Each of these petitions raised the same issue as the petition in this case, and each relied on the same declaration attesting to the number of direct-file cases that were pending in the county at the time. In Negrete , the People first offered as an exhibit an email string, including a message from a sitting superior court judge, in support of their assertion that immediate appellate action was necessary to prevent further confusion in the trial courts. The judge's e-mail indicates "that the Prop 57 remands to juvenile court are causing some significant stress since there are no specific protocols that are in place," and that "there is going to be some confusion." The People's e-mail exhibit implies this state of confusion was expected to last until some kind of appellate intervention occurred.

Finally, the People filed People v. Superior Court (E.P. ) (case No. E067384) on December 16, 2016. On December 28, 2016, we denied the petition's request for immediate stay, indicated we would separately resolve the petition on the merits, and requested an informal response. We received a response on January 4, 2017, and a reply on January 13, 2017.

As the foregoing illustrates, the People presented us with five rapid-fire, nearly identical petitions in a two-week span, each with a request for immediate stay on the ground that exigent relief was necessary because rampant confusion was occurring in the trial court. We were also aware that delaying the publication of an opinion resolving the issue the People's petitions presented could have drastic consequences for real parties in interest, or, for that matter, for any minor who was facing prosecution under a complaint that had been directly filed in adult court but had not been transferred to juvenile court; each of the petitions sought an emergency stay on the ground that otherwise a dangerous offender would be released after the transfer to juvenile court took effect. The issue the People's petitions presented was concrete and easily addressed in a single published opinion. Moreover, the issues were well framed, the record was complete, and our only task was to construe Proposition 57, which is a legal question that does not depend on the specific facts of this or any of the other four petitions we ordered considered with it. Finally, as we explain in the final section of this opinion, resolution of this petition required us to do no more than apply "well-settled principles of law [to] undisputed facts." (See, e.g., Ng , supra , 4 Cal.4th at p. 35, 13 Cal.Rptr.2d 856, 840 P.2d 961 [listing criteria justifying granting a mandamus petition using the accelerated Palma procedure].) For all of these reasons, we expedited the petitions as much as possible by ordering them considered together, and by foregoing a hearing we found would have been unnecessary.

We then published an opinion on the merits on January 19, 2017.³ Therein, we cited Frisk v. Superior Court (2011) 200 Cal.App.4th 402, 414-417, 132 Cal.Rptr.3d 602 (Frisk ), for the proposition that we had created a cause and law of the case by requesting an informal response, receiving and considering the response and reply, publishing an opinion on the merits, and explicitly informing the parties of our conclusion that this opinion created a cause and law of the case, indicating the opinion was therefore something more than a so-called "summary denial." (See ...