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Supreme Court Broadens Three-Strikers’ Avenues of Relief
Opinion Grafts Together Language From Two Statutes to Find That Inmates Who Failed to Obtain Reduction in Sentences Through Reform Act May Seek to Do So Under Other Law, Drawing Dissent
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A divided California Supreme Court held yesterday that inmates sentenced to indeterminate life sentences under now-defunct three-strikes provisions may seek reduced sentences not only under the 2012 Reform Act, which was adopted by initiative, but also via a separate resentencing law with fewer procedural hurdles, finding that the two provisions can be reconciled by incorporating some language from the former into the later-adopted legislation.
At issue is whether allowing the resentencing request to proceed under Penal Code §1172.75, adopted by a simple majority of the Legislature in 2021, would violate Article II, §10 of the California Constitution, which provides that the legislative body may only amend an initiative statute in accordance with the terms outlined in the measure.
Passed by the electorate in 2012 as part of Proposition 36, the Reform Act provides that its terms may be amended only by a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. Codified at Penal Code §1170.126, the law provides that “a person serving an indeterminate term of life imprisonment” based on a non-serious or non-violent “third strike” may “file a petition for recall of sentence, within two years of the effective date of the act…or…later” with good cause.”
Subdivision (f) specifies that qualified individuals are entitled to have their sentences reduced to double the term of the third felony conviction unless “the court…determines that resentencing the petitioner would pose an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety.”
Other Changes
Resentencing under §1172.75, on the other hand, contemplates the elimination most one-year prior prison enhancements but also provides that a court “shall apply…any other changes in law that reduce sentences.” The section is triggered when the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (“CDCR”) identifies an inmate as eligible for relief and requires no petition by the defendant within any delineated time frame.
Yesterday’s opinion, authored by Justice Kelli Evans and joined in by Justices Goodwin H. Liu, Leondra Kruger, Joshua P. Groban, and Martin J. Jenkins, the court declared:
“We hold that, as a matter of constitutional avoidance, section 1172.75 incorporates section 1170.126’s discretionary public safety override as a condition for nonserious, nonviolent third strike offenders to obtain resentencing under the revised penalty provisions of the Reform Act. Because section 1172.75 and section 1170.126, thus interpreted, operate harmoniously, the revised penalty provisions of the Reform Act may constitutionally apply at a resentencing pursuant to section 1172.75.”
Justice Carol Corrigan, joined by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, dissented, accusing the majority of unconstitutionally “rewriting the statute to permit full resentencing of pre-Prop 36 Three Strikes cases under the guise of constitutional avoidance” and “allow[ing] the Legislature to change the Initiative in constitutionally prohibited ways.”
Life in Prison
The constitutional principles were triggered after defendant Edgardo Ortiz Guevara was sentenced to 28 years to life in prison by Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge John McGregor in 2009, after he was found guilty of felony domestic violence charges and found to have committed two prior strike offenses. In 2013, he petitioned for resentencing relief under the Reform Act.
Former Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge James Iwasko (now retired) denied his petition, finding that he posed an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety. Div. Six of this district’s Court of Appeal affirmed.
In January 2023, the CDCR identified him as an inmate serving a term with an invalid prior prison enhancement and a resentencing hearing was scheduled. Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Von T. Nguyen Deroian ruled that he was entitled to relief from his life sentence under §1172.75 without regard to whether he posed a risk to public safety.
She ordered that his sentence be reduced to 8 years in prison, or double the upper term of four years, on the spousal abuse charge.
Prosecutors filed a petition for a writ of mandate seeking to have the life sentence reinstated and appealed the resentencing. In a divided opinion authored by Presiding Justice Arthur Gilbert, Div. Six granted the writ, directing the trial court to reinstate the sentence of 25 years to life in prison and reasoning that Deroian’s ruling “unconstitutionally eliminates the public safety” element of §1170.126.
Amends Initiative
Evans noted that “[a] statute amends a voter initiative where it ‘prohibits what the initiative authorizes, or authorizes what the initiative prohibits’ ” and acknowledged that voters intended that relief from harsh sentences only be applied in the event that the change did not pose a risk to public safety.
However, she pointed out that subdivision (k) of §1170.126—which specifies that “[n]othing in this section is intended to diminish or abrogate any rights or remedies otherwise available to the defendant”—suggests that the electorate contemplated that inmates might seek relief under other statutory schemes, saying:
“Taking as a given that the voters were concerned with public safety, section 1170.126, subdivision (k) nonetheless guarantees that defendants entitled to seek relief under section 1170.126 may access ‘rights or remedies otherwise available.’ ”
Given the tension between the two provisions, she cited “constitutional avoidance principles” and declared that “[w]e decline to find a conflict between section 1172.75 and section 1170.126 where a[n]…alternate interpretation” would give effect to all provisions and reconcile any inconsistencies.
Procedural Requirements
Characterizing §1170.126’s demand that the defendant file a petition within two years of the enactment of the Reform Act, or show good cause for any delay, as “procedural,” she opined:
“Our interpretation harmonizes the statutes by construing section 1172.75 as incorporating the substantive requirements of section 1170.126. But honoring the voters’ intent does not require reading the procedural requirements of a standalone section 1170.126 petition into all other resentencing mechanisms.”
She declared:
“The case is remanded to the Court of Appeal with instructions to remand the case to the superior court. If the…court determines that resentencing Real Party in Interest pursuant to the revised penalty provisions of the Reform Act would ‘pose an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety,” the court shall reimpose an indeterminate term. If…not…, and Real Party in Interest is otherwise eligible under the Reform Act, the court shall resentence Real Party in Interest pursuant to the revised penalty provisions of the Reform Act.”
Corrigan’s View
Saying that “[c]onstitutional avoidance is a tool for choosing between competing interpretations of a statute as written,” Corrigan argued that the majority impermissibly rewrote the law by combining terms from another provision and opined:
“[T]he majority misapplies the tool of constitutional avoidance to support its novel statutory interpretation. The attempt is also flawed because it fails to actually solve the constitutional problem presented here. The majority’s decision today will give Guevara, 12 years after his section 1170.126 petition was denied, another bite at the same apple, all without having to petition for resentencing or to show good cause for a late or successive petition as the Initiative mandates. The majority’s decision exceeds our role as a court and subverts the initiative process itself. As a result, I cannot join my colleagues in the majority.”
She continued:
“Section 1170.126, subdivision (k) does not support the majority’s distinction between ‘substantive’ and ‘procedural’ requirements of section 1170.126’s petition procedure….The majority’s effort to pick and choose which requirements to apply runs directly counter to the voters’ intent that Prop. 36 be applied as a cohesive whole.”
The jurist declared:
“The proper remedy here is to allow the trial court to strike the now-invalid prior prison term enhancements but reinstate the previously imposed Three Strikes sentence. This approach would both effectuate the intent of the Legislature while honoring that of the electorate.”
The case is People v. Superior Court (Guevara), 2025 S.O.S. 2759.
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