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Court of Appeal:
Minor ‘Commits Crime With Adult’ Even if Elder Is Cleared
Opinion Says Defendant, Who Is Serving 75 Years to Life for Murder He Committed at Age 17, Is Entitled to Resentencing Hearing So Long as Older Party Played Some Role in Offense
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
Div. Four of this district’s Court of Appeal held yesterday that a defendant, who was sentenced to 75 years to life in prison for a murder he committed when he was 17 years old, is entitled to a resentencing hearing because he committed the crime with an adult—one of the relief-triggering factors under the statutory scheme—even if the other party later had her conviction for the killing overturned.
Acting Presiding Justice Audrey B. Collins authored the opinion, saying that resentencing relief remains available even if the adult in question was not convicted of the same offense as the juvenile so long as the petitioner shows that the elder party was “culpably involved in the overarching series of events.”
At issue is Penal Code §1170(d), which was amended in 2013 to provide:
“When a defendant who was under 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense for which the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole has been incarcerated for at least 15 years, the defendant may submit to the sentencing court a petition for recall and resentencing.”
In 2022, Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal declared, in People v. Heard, that the section applies to juvenile offenders who have been sentenced to the “functional equivalent of life without parole” based on equal protection principles.
Under §1170(d)(2), a petitioner must provide a “statement describing [his] remorse and work toward rehabilitation” and the request must assert that he qualifies for relief based on an enumerated circumstance, one of which is that “[t]he defendant committed the crime with at least one adult codefendant.” Upon proving one of the triggering circumstances by a preponderance of the evidence, the inmate is entitled to a resentencing hearing.
2007 Murder
The question arose after Richard Gomez was convicted of the April 2007 slaying of Mary Castro and the attempted murder of another victim, identified as “Juan C,” during a drug deal gone wrong in a Wilmington parking lot. An adult codefendant, Melanie Gandara, was also charged with the crimes.
In May 2010, following a jury trial, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Otto sentenced Gomez to 75 years to life in prison for the offenses and related enhancements.
Gandara pled no contest to attempted murder in April of 2010. Although the opinion does not provide details as to her case, Los Angeles Superior Court records establish that prosecutors agreed during a 2023 resentencing hearing to amend her charges to attempted robbery—possibly due to changes to the felony murder rule—and she was released on parole with credit for time served.
On Jan. 2, 2024, Gomez filed a petition for recall and resentencing under §1170(d), including a handwritten letter “express[ing] his remorse” and describing purported efforts at rehabilitation. Prosecutors opposed the request, conceding that his sentence was the functional equivalent of life without the possibility of parole, but otherwise challenging his eligibility for relief.
Attorneys with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office raised doubts about his rehabilitation, noting that he had assaulted another inmate on more than one occasion since his incarceration, and disputed that he “committed the crime with [an] adult co-defendant” in light of Gandara’s resentencing.
Otto sided with the prosecutors, saying “I do not believe it’s been shown by a preponderance” of the evidence that Gomez met any of the eligibility criteria outlined in the section, noting that Gandara’s attempted murder conviction had been vacated as part of the resentencing proceedings.
Yesterday’s opinion, joined in by Justice Armen Tamzarian and San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Craig B. Van Rooyen, sitting by assignment, orders that the defendant’s sentence be recalled and directs the trial court to hold a resentencing hearing.
Statutory Interpretation
Saying that “[t]he dispute here is one of statutory interpretation,” Collins remarked that “[w]e begin and end out analysis with section 1170(d)(2)(C), which we conclude is satisfied here.” She wrote:
“The question under section 1170(d)(2)(C) is whether appellant ‘committed the offense with at least one adult codefendant.’…The charging document in the appellate record establishes that appellant was charged jointly with Melanie Gandara, who…was an adult at the time of the crimes. Gandara therefore was an ‘adult codefendant’—but did appellant ‘commit[ ] the offense with’ her?”
The jurist commented:
“[The Office of the Attorney General] takes a narrow view of the language in section 1170(d)(2)(C), asserting that the petitioner and adult codefendant must factually, via their conduct, ‘commit’ the same ‘offense’ for which the petitioner was sentenced to LWOP or its equivalent. Appellant, on the other hand, takes a less restrictive view. He contends the ‘statute’s plain language looks to the commission of the offense, not the nature of any related convictions,’ and Gandara ‘remains convicted for her participation in the drug deal and related robbery, which led to the shooting.’ We conclude appellant has the better interpretation.”
She opined that, “[a]s evidenced by the parties’ dueling interpretations, the language….is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation” and said that the court must “look beyond the plain language to the purpose of the statute.”
Saying that the “driving rationale” for the amendments was a recognition that juveniles are capable of becoming productive citizens, despite mistakes made in their youth, and that the references to adult codefendants were included out of a concern that minors may have been encouraged into criminal conduct by older criminals.
Adult Influence
Under those circumstances, she reasoned:
“An adult may influence a juvenile to ‘commit’ an ‘offense’ even if the adult does not engage in identical conduct or share the juvenile’s culpability. Moreover, it is not open to dispute on this record that Gandara was at one point convicted of a homicide or attempted homicide offense stemming from the April 2007 incident for which appellant was convicted and sentenced to the functional equivalent of LWOP. That conviction has now been vacated and reduced many years later due to a change in the law, but the fact remains that appellant established by a preponderance of the evidence that Gandara was culpably involved in the overarching series of events. Appellant’s eligibility for relief should not turn on the precise character of Gandara’s conviction.”
Collins added:
“[A]ppellant and Gandara were both, in the past, convicted of homicide offenses. Gandara subsequently benefitted from a favorable change in state law: her conviction was vacated and reduced to a lesser offense. It strikes us as fundamentally unfair to deny appellant the opportunity to seek relief under a statute aimed at encouraging and rewarding rehabilitation of juvenile offenders because his adult codefendant independently benefited from a separate legislative act of lenity….The trial court erred in denying appellant’s petition.”
The case is People v. Gomez, 2025 S.O.S. 2704.
The California Supreme Court is poised to address what sentences qualify as the “functional equivalent of life without the possibility of parole,” having granted review in People v. Munoz. In that case, this district’s Div. Seven found earlier this year that the defendant’s sentence of 50 years to life in prison did not qualify for relief under §1170(d).
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