In re Eugene Jones

Eugene Jones has filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus challenging the denial

of his superior court petition to recall his sentence and resentence him pursuant to Penal

Code section 1170, subdivision (d)(2) (section 1170(d)(2)).1

Jones is serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for a 1994 murder and other

offenses he committed when he was 19 years old. He contends that section 1170(d)(2)

violates his constitutional rights to equal protection of the law because it does not apply

to youthful offenders like him, who were between the ages of 18 and 25 when they

committed their crimes. We will deny this petition.

Jones was representing himself in July 2018, when he filed a petition in the

superior court to recall his sentence pursuant to section 1170(d)(2). This statute provides

that a defendant who is serving an LWOP sentence for an offense committed when the

defendant was “under 18 years of age” and who has been incarcerated for at least 15

years “may submit to the sentencing court a petition for recall and resentencing.”

(§ 1170(d)(2)(A)(i).) If specified conditions are met, the court must hold a hearing and

consider resentencing the defendant. (§ 1170(d)(2)(E).) In his superior court petition,



We grant Jones’s request to take judicial notice of the record on appeal that was

filed in People v. Jones, A155475.



Jones acknowledged he was 19 when he committed the offenses that resulted in his

current sentence, but he argued that “he should be permitted to petition to recall his

LWOP sentence . . . as a matter of equal protection.”

In September 2018, the superior court filed an order denying Jones’s petition.

Construing Jones’s pleading as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the court rejected

on the merits Jones’s claim that the age restriction in section 1170(d)(2) violates his right

to equal protection. In this court, Jones, who is represented by counsel, refines his

constitutional claim. He contends that section 1170(d)(2) violates equal protection

because it denies young adult LWOP offenders ages 18 to 25 the same opportunity to

petition for resentencing that is afforded to similarly situated juvenile offenders without

any rational basis for doing so.

“The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I,

section 7 of the California Constitution guarantee all persons the equal protection of the

laws.” (People v. Edwards (2019) 34 Cal.App.5th 183, 195 (Edwards).) “The concept of

equal protection recognizes that persons who are similarly situated with respect to a law’s

legitimate purposes must be treated equally. [Citation.] Accordingly, ‘ “[t]he first

prerequisite to a meritorious claim under the equal protection clause is a showing that the

state has adopted a classification that affects two or more similarly situated groups in an

unequal manner.” ’ [Citation.] ‘This initial inquiry is not whether persons are similarly

situated for all purposes, but “whether they are similarly situated for purposes of the law

challenged.” ’ ” (People v. Brown (2012) 54 Cal.4th 314, 328, italics omitted.)

Because LWOP offenders who were between the ages of 18 and 25 when they

committed their offenses are adult offenders they are not similarly situated to juvenile

offenders described in section 1170(d)(2). The United States Supreme Court has

repeatedly found that “children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of

sentencing.” (Miller v. Alabama (2012) 567 U.S. 460, 471 [mandatory LWOP sentence

for juvenile offender violates the Eighth Amendment]; see also Graham v. Florida (2010)

560 U.S. 48, 68 [Eighth Amendment prohibits imposing LWOP sentence on juvenile

offender for nonhomicide offense]; Roper v. Simmons (2005) 543 U.S. 551, 569 [Eighth

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Amendment prohibits imposing death penalty on juvenile offender under the age of 18].)

Juveniles as a group are not similarly situated to adults who commit otherwise

comparable crimes because of their lack of maturity, vulnerability to negative influences,

and incomplete character development. (Ropers, supra, 543 U.S. at pp. 569–570.)

“Because juveniles have diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform . . . ‘they

are less deserving of the most severe punishments.’ ” (Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at p. 471.)

Disputing this conclusion, Jones posits that the criteria for distinguishing juveniles

from adults supports his equal protection claim. According to Jones, the “underlying

rationale” of section 1170(d)(2) is that “young people are different developmentally and

neurologically” from older offenders. He further alleges that young adults who are

between 18 and 25 when they commit their LWOP offenses are similarly situated to

juvenile LWOP offenders because they also have developing brains, lack maturity, and

have increased potential for rehabilitation.

Jones cites no authority for the purpose he ascribes to section 1170(d)(2), and we

think his formulation fails fully to capture it. The Legislature may well have been

concerned that “young people are different developmentally and neurologically,” but it

was also concerned, more specifically, with LWOP sentences meted out on children—on

those young people who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes.

“[T]he most reliable indicator of legislative intent” is generally the language of a statute

(Murphy v. Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. (2007) 40 Cal.4th 1094, 1103), and here the

express terms of section 1170(d)(2) indicate that the statute was aimed at providing relief

only for those who had not yet reached the age of majority when they committed their

crimes. By drawing the line at a defendant’s eighteenth birthday, the Legislature has

chosen to target the youngest, and presumably most deserving, of the group of youthful

offenders whose brains were still developing and whose judgment had not yet matured.

While young adults share many of the attributes of youth, they are by definition further

along in the process of maturation, and the law need not be blind to the difference.

Jones intimates that section 1170(d)(2) serves the same purpose as Penal Code

section 3051, which establishes special parole eligibility guidelines for young adult

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offenders. He then opines that when section 3051 was amended to raise the age of

youthful offender parole eligibility to 25, the Legislature implicitly found that the brain is

not fully developed until at least that age. Jones overlooks, however, that section 3051

does not apply to individuals who received an LWOP sentence for a crime that was

committed after they turned 18. (§ 3051, subd. (h).) Thus, to the extent it is relevant

here, section 3051 is inconsistent with Jones’s claim that criminal offenders who received

LWOP sentences for crimes they committed before they turned 18 are similarly situated

to young adult offenders serving LWOP sentences.

Even if we assume that adult LWOP offenders under the age of 25 are similar to

juvenile LWOP offenders in the sense that their brains are not fully developed, section

1170(d)(2) does not violate equal protection because the “Legislature has a

constitutionally sufficient reason to treat the groups differently.” (People v. Castel

(2017) 12 Cal.App.5th 1321, 1326.) “Where a class of criminal defendants is similarly

situated to another class of defendants who are sentenced differently, courts look to

determine whether there is a rational basis for the difference. [Citation.] ‘[E]qual

protection of the law is denied only where there is no “rational relationship between the

disparity of treatment and some legitimate governmental purpose.” ’ [Citation.] . . . If a

plausible basis exists for the disparity, ‘[e]qual protection analysis does not entitle the

judiciary to second-guess the wisdom, fairness, or logic of the law.’ ” (Edwards, supra,

34 Cal.App.5th at pp. 195–196.)

To determine the age at which the diminished culpability of a youthful offender

should no longer result in a categorically different sentence, a line must be drawn

somewhere. (Roper, supra, 543 U.S. at pp. 574, Graham, supra, 560 U.S. at pp. 75–79.)

“[W]hile ‘[d]rawing the line at 18 years of age is subject … to the objections always

raised against categorical rules …[, it] is the point where society draws the line for many

purposes between childhood and adulthood.’ ” (People v. Argeta (2012) 210 Cal.App.4th

1478, 1482 quoting Roper, supra, 543 U.S. at p. 574.) The Legislature could reasonably

decide that for those convicted of LWOP crimes, the line should be drawn at age 18,

rather than at some later date when the brain is fully developed. Drawing a bright line at

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age 18 establishes an objective and easily implemented measure, which has been used by

the United States Supreme Court for sentencing purposes. While a different line could

have been drawn, it is not entirely arbitrary to limit section 1170(d)(2) to individuals who

committed their crimes before they were 18 years old.

The petition for writ of habeas corpus is denied.