Tuesday, December 9, 2025
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C.A.: Reducing Qualifying Murder Convictions Does Not Flout Special Circumstances Shield
Opinion Says Valid First-Degree Verdicts May Be Upended at Resentencing Even if Jury Found True Death-Qualifying Allegations Despite Law Guarding Such Findings
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has held that a trial judge did not err in vacating a defendant’s otherwise valid first-degree, special-circumstances murder convictions and imposing sentences on lesser offenses at a resentencing hearing triggered by an unrelated enhancement based on the accused’s having purportedly “turned himself around.”
Finding that a law shielding a jury’s findings on special circumstances from judicial modification is not implicated, the court said that the reduction of the offenses was within the court’s discretion.
At issue is the interplay between Penal Code §1172.1, which provides that “the court may…recall the sentence…previously ordered and resentence the defendant in the same manner as if they had not previously been sentenced” if “the applicable…laws at the time of original sentencing are subsequently changed,” and §1385.1, which specifies:
“Notwithstanding…any other provision of law, a judge shall not strike or dismiss any special circumstance which is admitted by a plea of guilty or nolo contendere or is found by a jury or court.”
Justice Nathan Scott authored Friday’s opinion, saying:
“The district attorney contends vacating the convictions, on which the jury found true a special circumstance, violated a statute prohibiting judges from ‘strik[ing] or dismiss[ing] any special circumstance.’…We harmonize the statutes and hold that vacating the underlying convictions did not ‘strike or dismiss’ the special circumstance.”
The question arose after Travis Frederickson was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in 1998. The jury found that he personally used a firearm in the offenses and that he had committed the special circumstance of multiple murders.
Former Orange Superior Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon (now retired) sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole.
Resentencing Petition
In 2024, Frederickson petitioned the court for resentencing based on §1172.1, citing a change in the law governing firearm enhancements that now allows judges to dismiss the allegation in the interest of justice.
Attorneys with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office agreed that the court had authority to vacate the firearm enhancement and resentence Frederickson but argued that the murder convictions could not be altered based on §1385.1.
Orange Superior Court Judge Lewis W. Clapp rejected the prosecutor’s assertion, saying: “These are the hardest cases this court has. Because the gravity of…the offenses is so severe. But this court continues to believe that a man can turn himself around….
“Which is apparently what [Frederickson] is trying to do is to improve a lot of the people around him also. And the court believes that he can continue to do good works and help those around him.”
Clapp acknowledged §1385.1 but vacated the prior judgment of conviction and ordered that a new one be entered reflecting two counts of second-degree murder with firearm enhancements, remarking:
“What the court is doing is reducing the first-degree…murders[] to second-degree murders.
“And since that special [circumstance] attaches only to the first-degree murders, once those murders are reduced the special circumstances also are no longer…in play.”
On June 28, 2024, the judge resentenced Frederickson to two concurrent terms of 25 years in prison. Friday’s opinion, joined in by Acting Presiding Justice Joanne Motoike and Justice Martha K. Gooding, affirms the judgment.
Best Harmonized
Citing a rule that favors statutory interpretations that give full force and effect to all provisions of the laws at stake, Scott wrote:
“The statutes are best harmonized by understanding section 1385.1 to limit the power of ‘a judge’ to divorce a special circumstance from its underlying conviction—a judge cannot ‘strike or dismiss’ a special circumstance. Nor can a judge, as the trial court recognized, stay punishment on the special circumstance.”
However, he noted that the section “does not purport to address what can happen to the underlying conviction,” pointing out that “[n]otwithstanding the statute, convictions can be vacated by a variety of well-established procedures—e.g., a motion to vacate…; a new trial motion…; a reversal on appeal…; ameliorative legislation…; and petitions for writs of habeas corpus….”
He opined that, in such cases, “the special circumstance falls by operation of law, not by any action of the ‘judge’ ” because there is “no longer any underlying conviction to which the special circumstance may attach.”
Basic Predicates
The jurist continued:
“Here, the district attorney does not dispute the basic predicates for resentencing. He concedes the change in the firearm enhancement sentencing law triggered section 1172.1. He does not dispute a factual basis existed for the court to find it in ‘the interest of justice’ to resentence Frederickson….The court was thus authorized to ‘recall [Frederickson’s] sentence…and resentence…as if [he] had not previously been sentenced.’ ”
Addressing the prosecutors’ assertion that the court’s interpretation amounts to an improper amendment of §1385.1, which, as a statute adopted through the initiative process, may only be altered with voter approval, Scott said:
“Section 1172.1 does not amend section 1385.1 because the authorization to vacate convictions does not change the penalty required by section 1385.1 for special-circumstance murder.”
He added:
“Nor do we amend section 1385.1. We simply carry out our duty to [reconcile the statutes]….Section 1385.1 addresses only a judge’s efforts to divorce a special circumstance from a standing conviction. It simply does not restrict any of the permissible ways for vacating the underlying conviction.”
The case is People v. Frederickson, 2025 S.O.S. 3594.
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