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Cases Affecting Children
People v. Trevino (2001) 26 Cal.App.4th 237 [109 Cal.Rptr.2d 567]. Supreme Court of California.
The trial court sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, finding a prior-murder special circumstance. (Pen. Code, § 190.2.)
In California, the penalty for first degree murder is either death or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole if the prosecution proves one or more of the special circumstances specified in Penal Code section 190.2. One of these special circumstances, known as the prior-murder special circumstance, is that "[t]he defendant was convicted previously of murder in the first or second degree." (Pen. Code, § 190.2(a)(2).) The defendant in this case was 33 years old when he committed the recent murder in California, and he had been 15 when he committed a murder in Texas. At trial, the prosecution alleged that the Texas conviction was a prior-murder special circumstance. The defendant argued that the Texas murder did not qualify under the prior-murder special circumstance because at the time of the murder, 1978, the defendant could not have been tried as an adult in California. (A person younger than 16 in California could not be tried as an adult.) The trial court denied the defendant's motion to strike the Texas conviction as a prior-murder special circumstance and sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The defendant appealed and renewed his argument that the prior-murder special circumstance could not be based on an offense committed in another jurisdiction if, when he committed the offense, the defendant was too young to be tried as an adult in California.
The Court of Appeal reversed the decision of the trial court. The Court of Appeal set aside the prior-murder special circumstance finding, vacated the sentence, and remanded the matter to the trial court for resentencing. The Supreme Court of California granted the People's petition for review.
The Supreme Court of California reversed the decision of the Court of Appeal. The court asked whether a prior-murder special circumstance finding can be based on an offense committed in another jurisdiction if, under the law at the time of the offense, the defendant was too young to be tried as an adult in California. Penal Code section 190.2(a)(2) states: "For the purpose of this paragraph, an offense committed in another jurisdiction, which if committed in California would be punishable as first or second degree murder, shall be deemed murder in the first or second degree." The majority determined that the statute's focus is on the "conduct," not the age or other personal characteristics of the person engaged in the conduct. It is the offense and not necessarily the offender that must satisfy statutory requirements for punishment under California law as first- or second-degree murder. Moreover, the majority determined that the Legislature would have drafted a provision to require consideration of the defendant's age or other personal characteristics, as in Penal Code section 688, if it had intended to impose those requirements. The majority concluded that a conviction in another jurisdiction may be deemed a conviction of first- or second-degree murder for purposes of California's prior-murder special circumstances if the offense involved conduct that satisfies all the elements of the offense of murder under California law, whether or not the defendant, when he committed that offense, was old enough to be tried as an adult in California. Therefore, the court reversed the decision of the appellate court, and remanded the appeal to that court with directions to affirm the trial court's judgment.Chief Justice Ronald M. George, joined by Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, dissented. The dissent disagreed with the majority's reading of section 190.2(a)(2) as not referring to the status, personal characteristics, or circumstances of the accused. The dissenters determined that the words "would be punishable as" refer not merely to the elements of the offense but to the potential punishment that could be imposed. Homicide committed by a person 15 years of age was not "punishable as" murder in California in 1978 when the defendant was convicted in Texas. The dissent noted that when a statute is ambiguous and there are differing, reasonable interpretations, any ambiguity in the statutory language should be interpreted as favorably for the defendant as its language and the circumstances of its application permit. The dissenters believed that the statute should be interpreted so that "it would not include the conviction of a minor in a foreign jurisdiction for an offense that could not have been punished as first or second degree murder had the offense been committed in California."
