The People v. Mario Salvador Padilla

Los Angeles, California criminal defense lawyer represented defendant charged with first degree murder.





In 2016, the voters of California enacted Proposition 57, a measure that amended the law governing the punishment of juvenile offenses in adult criminal court by requiring hearings to determine whether the offenses should instead be heard in juvenile court. Adjudicating these offenses in juvenile court typically results in less severe punishment for the juvenile offender. (People v. Superior Court (Lara) (2018) 4 Cal.5th 299, 306-307 (Lara).)



Our precedent holds that "new laws that reduce the punishment for a crime are presumptively to be applied to defendants whose judgments are not yet final." (People v. Conley (2016) 63 Cal.4th 646, 656 (Conley), citing In re Estrada (1965) 63 Cal.2d 740 (Estrada).) When that presumption applies, its retroactivity rule extends to all "nonfinal judgments." (People v. Esquivel (2021) 11 Cal.5th 671, 677 (Esquivel).) Applying that rule, we unanimously concluded two years after Proposition 57 passed that the initiative "ameliorated the possible punishment for a class of persons, namely juveniles." (Lara, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p. 308.) We held that "Estrada's inference of retroactivity applies" to the proposition's juvenile provisions, making those provisions applicable to all cases in which the judgment was not final when the proposition went into effect. (Lara, at p. 309.)



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The question here is whether Proposition 57 applies during resentencing when a criminal court sentence imposed on a juvenile offender before the initiative's passage has since been vacated. Defendant Mario Salvador Padilla was originally sentenced before Proposition 57 was enacted, but his judgment later became nonfinal when his sentence was vacated on habeas corpus and the case was returned to the trial court for imposition of a new sentence. Consistent with our decisions articulating the scope of the Estrada presumption, we hold that Proposition 57 applies to his resentencing.

In sum, Estrada stated an exception to the general rule that a new law which is silent as to retroactivity was intended to apply prospectively only. Estrada reasoned that, despite silence on the matter, a court may presume the enactor's intent for retroactive application under the limited circumstances that a new law reduces punishment and a final judgment has not been rendered. The majority now expands this presumption to cases that have already become final because, following a collateral attack by way of habeas corpus, the court engages in proceedings that touch upon a defendant's potential sentence. In such a posture, the majority holds the original case has been reopened, even if those habeas proceedings ultimately do not invalidate any aspect of the prior sentence or conviction. The majority's expansion of Estrada has no support in the language or reasoning of that case or its progeny. The majority's reasoning also improperly ascribes to the voters who enacted Prop. 57 an intent, through silence, to apply its provisions to long-final cases, resulting in juvenile transfer hearings for adults who are well past the age at which they can be treated under juvenile law. The majority's holding significantly undermines the finality rule which all prior cases relied upon as a safeguard and which "has been a fixture of our criminal law for more than 50 years." (Esquivel, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 675.) We should not, on the basis of unsound analysis, drag this Trojan Horse within Estrada's carefully crafted walls. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

People v. Padilla (Cal. 2022)