Court hands ‘felony murder’ law fresh blow
The California Supreme Court bolstered a Bay Area lawmaker’s legislation Monday allowing prisoners to challenge their murder convictions for killings committed by others, saying hundreds of inmates who want to use the law to set aside their life sentences have the right to a courtappointed attorney.
SB1437 by Sen. Nancy Skinner, DBerkeley, which took effect in 2019, narrowed California’s “felony murder” law, which allowed anyone taking part in a potentially dangerous felony, such as robbery or burglary, to be convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, or death in some cases, if someone was killed.
Under the new law, one of a series of recent measures aimed at reducing California’s severe sentencing regimen, a murder conviction is allowed only if the defendant intended the killing and directed or aided in it, or acted with “reckless indifference to human life.”
SB1437 applied retroactively, allowing pris
oners to challenge their murder convictions and sentences under the former law. But while the new law also granted prisoners the same right to legal representation that criminal defendants already hold, most of the state’s appellate courts have refused to require appointment of a lawyer before a local judge holds an initial hearing in the case.
At that hearing, after prosecutors and the inmate offer competing evidence, the judge decides whether the case appears to meet the standards of SB1437. If so, the judge appoints an attorney to argue the case. If not, the judge dismisses the challenge and reaffirms the murder conviction and sentence — dismissals issued in more than 300 cases now before the state’s high court.
On Monday, the court ruled unanimously that inmates whose claims met the basic standards of SB1437 — that they were convicted of murder but hadn’t killed anyone — were entitled to an attorney to prepare and argue their case in Superior Court.
Because legal issues in such cases are difficult for inmates and other nonlawyers to understand on their own, appointment of an attorney at an early stage of the case “furthers the purpose of the law,” Justice Joshua Groban said in the 70 ruling.
Skinner had joined prisoners’ rights advocates in urging the court to require appointment of legal counsel.
“Many people in our prisons cannot read. Many people in our prison system have a limited education. Many people in our prisons have limited English comprehension. Many people in our prisons have intellectual disabilities or have been diagnosed with a mental disorder,” the senator said in a court filing joined by attorney
Kate Chatfield, who drafted SB1437 and visited state prisons after its passage to educate inmates about their rights.
Attorney Robert Bacon, who argued the case on behalf of a Los Angeles man challenging his murder conviction, said the ruling carried out state lawmakers’ intentions.
“The Legislature designed this law to give it as broad application as possible, to identify people who should be serving sentences for lesser crimes that they actually committed and not for murders that someone else committed,” Bacon said. “Too many courts made it unreasonably hard for them to even get in the courthouse door.”
His client, Vince E. Lewis, was convicted of firstdegree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the fatal shooting of a woman named Darsy Noriega, allegedly a member of the same gang, in 2012. Another gang member killed Noriega while Lewis was waiting in a car. Bacon said Lewis would admit that he expected Noriega to be beaten for alleged disloyalty but denied he expected or intended her to be killed.
Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office, which argued to uphold Lewis’ conviction with the support of county prosecutors, declined to comment on the ruling.