California Supreme Court Reduces Sentences for Gang Murderers

In a unanimous ruling announced on December 18, the California Supreme Court held that a 2021 bill that narrowed the definition of “street gang” to reduce the number of criminal defendants designated as gang members, did not violate Proposition 21, a 2000 ballot measure cracking down on gang criminals.

The Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act was adopted by state voters to, among other things, require that gang members convicted of first degree murder receive a sentence of either death or life in prison without parole (LWOP). Critical to a court’s ability to sentence a gang murderer is his gang affiliation, which is considered under state law to be an aggravating factor to the crime.

In 2021 Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 333 into law. That law redefined the requirements for proving that a defendant was the member of a criminal street gang engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity. The law makes it more difficult for prosecutors to prove that a defendant is a gang member participating in gang-related crimes.

The result is that fewer gang-related murderers and other criminals will be given the sentences required by Proposition 21.

Proposition 21 included a provision that prohibits the legislature from amending it with anything less than a two-thirds vote of both houses. The vote to pass AB 333 did not meet this requirement. In the 40 member state Senate the vote was 25-10, one vote short of two-thirds.

The vote to pass the bill in the 80 member Assembly was 41-30, twelve votes short of two-thirds.

In June of 2022, California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal held that AB 333 did amend Proposition 21, and due to the Legislature’s failure to pass it with a two-thirds vote, it was invalid.

The December 18 State Supreme Court opinion in People v. Rojas acknowledged that, “the purpose of Proposition 21 was to heighten the penalties for gang activity and other violent crimes.”

Justice Goodwin Lui, who authored the opinion, then brushed aside the court of appeal opinion, ruling that AB 333 did not amend Proposition 21. Liu noted that the section of state law that was amended had been changed several times by the Legislature in the years before passage of Proposition 21. Therefore, he claimed, the voters understood that the definition (of a gang member) “was both changeable and had been repeatedly subject to change.”

That is quite a stretch.

I doubt that any voter in the state understood this. It is more likely that they voted for Proposition 21 to increase the penalties for gang criminals and especially gang murderers. As the Court of Appeal noted, a change that takes away from an initiative is an amendment under Supreme Court precedents, and AB 333 takes away a big chunk of the coverage of Proposition 21.

Yet the California Supreme Court ran roughshod over its own precedents to let gangster-murderers off with lighter sentences.