Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Without notice to appellant A.I. (mother of the minor R.O.), the juvenile court followed its usual practice of converting what was scheduled as a contested jurisdictional confirmation hearing into an uncontested jurisdictional hearing because mother did not appear as ordered. It did so over mother’s counsel’s objection. The Court of Appeal concluded this routine practice denied mother her due process rights. The Court therefore reversed and remanded the matter for a new jurisdictional hearing. View "In re R.O." on Justia Law

Frank Heard was serving a sentence of 23 years plus 80 years to life for two counts of attempted willful, deliberate and premeditated murder for a drive-by shooting he committed at age 15, and one count of voluntary manslaughter for a homicide he committed just after he turned 16. After 15 years of incarceration, he petitioned the trial court to recall his sentence and resentence him to a lesser sentence under Penal Code section 1170 (d)(1) (formerly (d)(2)). The trial court denied Heard’s petition, finding him ineligible for relief because he was not sentenced to an explicitly designated term of life without the possibility of parole. Heard appealed, presenting two issues of first impression: (1) the resentencing provision should be interpreted to apply not only to juvenile offenders sentenced to explicitly designated terms of life without parole, but also to a juvenile offender, like him, who have been sentenced to multiple terms that are the functional equivalent of life without parole; and (2) a contrary interpretation of the resentencing provision would violate his constitutional right to equal protection of the laws. The Court of Appeal rejected Heard's his first contention, instead interpreting section 1170 (d)(1)(A), to limit eligibility to petition for recall and resentencing to juvenile offenders sentenced to explicitly designated life without parole terms. But the Court concluded denying juvenile offenders, who were sentenced to the functional equivalent of life without parole, the opportunity to petition for resentencing violated the guarantee of equal protection. The Court therefore reversed the trial court’s order and remanded for further proceedings. View "California v. Heard" on Justia Law

In this appeal, the State argued that a sentencing court’s discretion under California v. Tirado, 12 Cal.5th 688 (2022) was limited to imposing a lesser enhancement under Penal Code section 12022.53, so a court that strikes an enhancement under section 12022.53 cannot impose an uncharged lesser included enhancement under section 12022.5. The Court of Appeal disagreed, holding that under Tirado the sentencing court may impose an uncharged lesser included enhancement under section 12022.5 after striking a greater enhancement under section 12022.53. View "California v. Fuller" on Justia Law

In 1997, real party in interest and appellant Nathan Ramazzini was convicted of first degree murder with a special circumstance regarding a killing that occurred when Ramazzini was 16 years old. Pursuant to California Penal Code section 190.5 (b), enacted by Proposition 115 (the Crime Victims Justice Reform Ac), Ramazzini was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP). At the time Ramazzini was sentenced, courts interpreted section 190.5 (b) as establishing a presumption in favor of LWOP. In 2012, the US Supreme Court concluded the Eighth Amendment to the federal Constitution barred mandatory LWOP sentences for minors. The California Supreme Court subsequently concluded that section 190.5 (b) conferred discretion on the sentencing court to impose either a sentence of 25 years to life or LWOP, but the presumption in favor of LWOP was inconsistent with Miller. In response to Miller, the California Legislature passed Senate Bill No. 394 (2017- 2018 Reg. Sess.), which provided that those sentenced to LWOP for crimes committed when they were 16 or 17 years old were eligible for release on parole during their 25th year of incarceration. Ramazzini became eligible for a parole hearing in July 2021. Upon learning of that eligibility, the Colusa County District Attorney’s Office (Office), petitioned for writ of mandate seeking to invalidate Senate Bill No. 394 on its face and as applied to Ramazzini, and to enjoin the Board of Parole Hearings (Board) from enforcing its provisions. The trial court granted the Office’s writ petition as applied to Ramazzini. The Board appealed, contending the Office lacked standing to petition for writ of mandate, and Senate Bill No. 394 was lawfully enacted. Ramazzini also appealed, joining the Board’s contentions and separately contended that Senate Bill No. 394 was lawfully enacted because it did not amend Proposition 115’s alternative sentencing scheme for 16- and 17-year-old defendants. The Court of Appeal agreed the Office lacked standing to bring the writ petition, and invalidated the judgment invalidating Senate Bill No. 394 as applied to Ramazzini. View "California v. Board of Parole Hearings" on Justia Law

Between 2018 and 2020, Electric Frontier Foundation, Inc. (EFF) moved to unseal affidavits filed in support of executed search warrants requested by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department (the Sheriff) and issued under seal by the San Bernardino Superior Court between March 2017 and March 2018. EFF was a “non-profit civil liberties organization working to protect and promote fundamental liberties in the digital world.” According to EFF, cell-site simulators collected the digital data of innocent people. “EFF claims law enforcement authorities in San Bernardino County lead the state in the use of cell-site simulators. Because of its concerns about the use of cell-site simulators, EFF petitioned to unseal eight “search warrant packets” that contained warrants issued by the Superior Court between March 2017 and March 2018 that allowed the Sheriff to use cell-site simulators. The Sheriff and the San Bernardino County District Attorney (collectively, the County) did not object to the unsealing of one warrant packet (SBSW 18-0850), but opposed the unsealing of portions of the seven other warrant packets. Specifically, the County argued the returns to the executed search warrants and the so-called “Hobbs affidavits” in support of the warrants should have remained sealed indefinitely, because they contained sensitive information about confidential informants and “official information.” The trial court denied EFF’s motion and ordered the affidavits to remain sealed. EFF appealed. Finding no abuse of discretion, the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court. View "Electronic Frontier Foundation, Inc. v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law

Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) Cash Handlers are supervised by Foreworkers. A labor agreement describes the selection of Foreworkers by an Evaluation Committee, comprised of three union representatives and three management representatives. Eight criteria, with assigned point values, are used. Each qualified applicant takes a written test and completes an oral interview with the Committee.In 2014, Plaintiffs sued BART alleging racial discrimination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) by not promoting them to Foreworker in favor of less experienced non-African-Americans. Under a 2016 settlement, Plaintiffs released their employment-related claims; BART paid them a certain sum, admitting no liability. In the following years, the Evaluation Committee appointed four new Foreworkers; each had received the highest total point scores. No Plaintiff was promoted. Plaintiffs again sued BART under FEHA, alleging disparate treatment and disparate impact race discrimination.The court of appeal affirmed summary judgment in favor of BART. There was evidence of a non-discriminatory reason for not promoting Plaintiffs (selection process scores). Plaintiffs failed to submit evidence that BART’s stated reason for not promoting them was untrue or that racial bias against African-Americans drove the promotion decisions. Plaintiffs did not present evidence of a statistically significant disparity between the percentage of qualified African-American applicants for the Foreworker position and the percentage of African-Americans promoted to Foreworker. View "Arega v. Bay Area Rapid Transit District" on Justia Law

Salvador, charged with sexual penetration of a person under the age of 16 by a person over 21, lewd or lascivious act on a child aged 14 or 15, felony false imprisonment, sexual battery, and annoying or molesting a child, pleaded no contest to felony false imprisonment and misdemeanor sexual battery. The trial court granted a three-year term of probation and imposed, among others, conditions requiring Salvador to consent to searches of his electronic devices, and restricting his use of social media and the Internet. Salvador challenged the probation conditions.The court of appeal struck the restriction on Salvador’s use of the Internet as unconstitutionally overbroad but upheld the remaining conditions. There is nothing in the record to support a restriction on Internet access more generally, as compared with the restriction limited to social media. The search and monitoring conditions are tailored with sufficient specificity to avoid unconstitutionally intruding on Salvador’s Fourth Amendment right. Because Salvador used social media to text the victims, the nexus to that condition, while attenuated, is sufficiently established such that imposition of the condition is not an abuse of discretion under California precedent. Any burden on Salvador’s use of social media is reasonably tempered by his ability to obtain prior approval; the use of social media is not so necessary to the activities of daily living that this requirement would unduly burden Salvador’s rights. View "People v. Salvador" on Justia Law

Defendant Alan Bueno, an inmate at the time of the offense at issue, arranged with a prison employee codefendant to obtain a cellular telephone. Bueno pleaded no contest to one felony count of conspiracy to violate California Penal Code section 4576(a), which barred possession with the intent to deliver or the actual delivery of a cellular telephone to a prison inmate. On appeal, Bueno contended he could not be convicted of conspiracy to deliver a cellular telephone to an inmate because he was the inmate to whom the cellular telephone was delivered. Bueno analogized the scenario in this case to cases involving drug sales, in which the “buyer-seller rule” precluded the purchaser from being held criminally liable for a conspiracy to sell drugs to himself. According to Bueno, this principle applied to preclude an inmate recipient of a cellular telephone from being held criminally liable for conspiring to commit the substantive offense of section 4576 (a). Alternatively, Bueno contended that the statutory scheme set out a tiered system of punishment for the different roles that an individual might play in a scheme to deliver/have delivered a cellular telephone to an inmate, and that this scheme evinced a legislative intent that the inmate who participates in such a scheme be punished by a loss of credits only, and not criminally prosecuted. The Court of Appeal concluded Bueno’s argument that he could not be convicted of conspiracy to violate section 4576 (a) was without merit. The Court therefore affirmed the judgment. View "California v. Bueno" on Justia Law

Detective Nava obtained a search warrant for Rowland’s residence. Nava had investigated a report from Sergeant Dahl, a member of the Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against ChildrenTask Force. Dahl was investigating Cybertips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which had received anonymous Cybertips from a Microsoft Online Operation employee who viewed files of apparent child pornography, which were uploaded from a particular IP address. The Child Victim Identification Program confirmed that the person from Cybertip 1 had been identified and was underage at the time the photograph was taken. Dahl learned the IP address was assigned to AT&T, obtained a search warrant, and learned the subscriber was Rowland. Charged with possessing or controlling matter depicting a person under 18 years of age personally engaging in or simulating sexual conduct, Rowland unsuccessfully moved to quash the search warrant that led to the seizure of his electronic devices, including a thumb drive that contained about 1,000 images and 25 videos of child pornography.The court of appeal affirmed. Although the search warrant affidavit did not name the employee who submitted the cybertips to NCMEC or the person who forwarded the cybertips from NCMEC to the police, the totality of the circumstances supported a determination that the cybertips came from unbiased citizen informants who could be presumed reliable and thus did not need independent corroboration. View "People v. Rowland" on Justia Law

In a dispute between members of a limited liability company (LLC), Plaintiff alleged that the LLC’s managing member engaged in self-dealing to the detriment of both Plaintiff and the company. After the managing member, represented by the LLC’s attorneys, cross-complained against Plaintiff, Plaintiff cross-complained against both the managing member and the attorneys for further self-dealing and breach of fiduciary duty, alleging they misappropriated funds from the LLC to finance the litigation. Cross-defendants specially moved to strike the complaint under the anti-SLAPP statute (Strategic Lawsuit Against Protected Activity; Code of Civil Procedure section 425) arguing the alleged conduct occurred as part of the litigation, which was protected activity.   The Second Appellate District affirmed the order imposing monetary sanctions. The court denied the other discovery orders deeming it a petition for extraordinary relief. The court affirmed the anti-SLAPP order striking Plaintiff’s cross-complaint. Further, the court directed the trial court to vacate its order awarding Defendant anti-SLAPP attorney fees and reconsider that order. The court explained that the trial court was in the best position to evaluate Plaintiff’s justifications for deficient responses, and as with the December 9, 2019 order, the court explained it cannot conclude that the trial court’s findings and decision on April 6, 2021, to impose additional monetary sanctions constituted a manifest abuse exceeding the bounds of reason. View "Manlin v. Milner" on Justia Law