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Court of Appeal:
Franklin Hearing Can’t Be Denied Based on Face of Motion, Court of Appeal Holds
Inmate Must Be Given ‘Meaningful Opportunity’ to Show What Evidence
Could Be Adduced of Circumstances of Tears As Youth, Opinion Says
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held yesterday that inmates who seek institution of a proceeding to preserve for the record mitigating evidence relating to what they experienced as youths, for potential use at a parole hearing, may not be turned down based on the motion revealing nothing new, but must be given a change to set forth what could be adduced.
The panel thus created a step between the motion for a Franklin proceeding—deriving its name from the California Supreme Court’s May 26, 2016 decision in People v. Franklin—and conducting such a proceeding. The intermediate step is to grant an opportunity, if the motion itself does not reveal a basis for further proceedings, to show why the matter should go forward.
In Franklin, the case was remanded to the Court of Appeal with instructions to shoot it back to the trial court “for the limited purpose of determining whether” the defendant “was afforded an adequate opportunity to make a record of information that will be relevant” to the Parole Board.
Prerequisite to Denial
Writing for the appeals court, Justice Eileen C. Moore said that a trial court may turn down a request for a Franklin proceeding “if it determines no relevant, noncumulative evidence likely exists,” but declared that “before doing so, the court must provide the defendant a meaningful opportunity to describe the evidence he or she seeks to preserve in the record.”
The decision comes in the case of a man who committed a first-degree murder in 1989 at the age of 25. He had a parole hearing in 2019 at which he presented information as to his background as a youth.
A Franklin proceeding was denied by Orange Superior Court Kimberly Menninger on the ground that the motion provided no justification for ordering it.
Light Burden
Moore wrote:
“Here, based solely on Howard’s Franklin motion, the court concluded there was sufficient youth-related evidence in the record and that Howard had failed to show what other relevant evidence could be preserved. But…, the requirements for a Franklin motion are minimal. The motion need not describe in detail the evidence the offender seeks to preserve. By denying Howard’s motion on its face, the court failed to provide Howard with an adequate opportunity to demonstrate whether a Franklin proceeding was warranted.”
She went on to say:
Although he introduced evidence relating to his youth at his 2019 parole hearing, it is unclear whether there is any other relevant, noncumulative evidence he seeks to preserve for his next hearing. (See ibid.) As such, after filing the Franklin motion, Howard should have been given an opportunity to describe the evidence he sought to introduce. It was premature for the court to determine based on his motion alone that he had not shown “what additional information ... could be provided that would assist the Board in assessing his suitability for parole.”
Moore did not specify whether the “meaningful opportunity” entails a hearing or whether briefing would suffice.
The case is People v. Howard; 2021 S.O.S. 6749.
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