Title: P. v. Hardin

State: california

Issuer: California Supreme Court

Document:

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF 
CALIFORNIA 
 
THE PEOPLE, 
Plaintiff and Respondent, 
v. 
TONY HARDIN, 
Defendant and Appellant. 
 
S277487 
 
Second Appellate District, Division Seven 
B315434 
 
Los Angeles County Superior Court 
A893110 
 
 
March 4, 2024 
 
Justice Kruger authored the opinion of the Court, in which 
Chief Justice Guerrero and Justices Corrigan, Groban, and 
Jenkins concurred. 
 
Justice Liu filed a dissenting opinion. 
 
Justice Evans filed a dissenting opinion. 
 
 
1 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
S277487 
 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
 
California’s 
youth 
offender 
parole 
statute 
offers 
opportunities for early release to certain persons who are 
incarcerated for crimes they committed at a young age.  (Pen. 
Code, §§ 3051, 4801.)  When it was first enacted in 2013, the 
statute applied only to individuals who committed their crimes 
before the age of 18; the purpose of the statute was to align 
California law with then-recent court decisions identifying 
Eighth Amendment limitations on life without parole sentences 
for juvenile offenders.  In more recent years, however, the 
Legislature has expanded the statute to include certain young 
adult offenders as well.  Under the current version of the 
statute, most persons incarcerated for a crime committed 
between ages 18 and 25 are entitled to a parole hearing during 
the 15th, 20th, or 25th year of their incarceration.  (Pen. Code, 
§ 3051, subd. (b).)  But not all youthful offenders are eligible for 
parole hearings.  The statute excludes, among others, offenders 
who are serving sentences of life in prison without the possibility 
of parole for a crime committed after the age of 18.  (Id., subd. 
(h).) 
 
Appellant Tony Hardin is currently serving a life without 
parole sentence for a special circumstance murder he committed 
at age 25.  He contends that the youth offender parole statute 
violates 
the 
Fourteenth 
Amendment’s 
equal 
protection 
guarantee by irrationally discriminating against young adult 
offenders sentenced to life without parole — including, in 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
2 
particular, those sentenced to life without parole for special 
circumstance murder.  Agreeing with Hardin and disagreeing 
with other appellate decisions to address the issue, the Court of 
Appeal held the life without parole exclusion invalid for lack of 
a rational basis.   
 
We now reverse.  The standard we apply here, rational 
basis review, is necessarily deferential.  The law recognizes that 
“[i]t is both the prerogative and the duty of the Legislature to 
define degrees of culpability and punishment, and to distinguish 
between crimes in this regard.”  (People v. Turnage (2012) 55 
Cal.4th 62, 74.)  Respect for the Legislature’s proper role — and 
ours — means that we may not strike down its enactment under 
a rational basis standard unless the challengers demonstrate 
that “there is no ‘rational relationship between the disparity of 
treatment and some legitimate governmental purpose.’ ”  (Ibid.) 
 
Without foreclosing the possibility of other as-applied 
challenges to the statute, we conclude that Hardin has not 
demonstrated that Penal Code section 3051’s exclusion of young 
adult 
offenders 
sentenced 
to 
life 
without 
parole 
is 
constitutionally invalid under a rational basis standard, either 
on its face or as applied to Hardin and other individuals who are 
serving life without parole sentences for special circumstance 
murder.  Under California law, special circumstance murder is 
a uniquely serious offense, punishable only by death or life 
without possibility of parole.  When it was considering whether 
to expand the youth offender parole system to include not only 
juvenile offenders but also certain young adults, the Legislature 
could rationally balance the seriousness of the offender’s crimes 
against the capacity of all young adults for growth, and 
determine that young adults who have committed certain very 
serious crimes should remain ineligible for release from prison.  
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
3 
Hardin has not demonstrated that the Legislature acted 
irrationally in declining to grant the possibility of parole to 
young adult offenders convicted of special circumstance murder, 
even as it has granted youth offender hearings to young adults 
convicted of other offenses. 
 
This conclusion does not turn on this court’s judgments 
about what constitutes sound sentencing policy.  It turns on the 
deference we owe to the policy choices made through the 
democratic process by the people of California and their elected 
representatives.  The legislative branch may continue to 
consider the appropriate reach of the youth offender parole 
statute in light of the recognized capacity of young persons for 
growth and change.  Hardin has not, however, established that 
the legislative policy choices reflected in current law are 
irrational and therefore impermissible as a matter of equal 
protection.   
I. 
In 1989, Hardin robbed and killed an elderly neighbor.  
Hardin was then 25 years old.  A jury convicted Hardin of first 
degree murder, among other offenses.  The jury also found true 
a special circumstance allegation that Hardin murdered the 
victim during the commission of a robbery.  Hardin’s conviction 
for first degree murder with special circumstances carried a 
mandatory sentence of either death or life in prison without the 
possibility of parole.  (Pen. Code, § 190.2, subd. (a); id., subd. 
(a)(17)(A).)  Although the prosecution had sought the death 
penalty, the penalty phase jury declined to return a death 
verdict.  The trial court imposed a sentence of life in prison 
without parole for the murder and stayed the sentences for the 
other convictions.   
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
4 
Decades later, Hardin filed a postjudgment motion to 
develop and preserve evidence for later use in a youth offender 
parole hearing under Penal Code section 3051 (section 3051).  
(See People v. Franklin (2016) 63 Cal.4th 261, 283–284 
(Franklin) [an offender who will later become eligible for a youth 
offender parole hearing is entitled to an interim court 
proceeding to develop and preserve evidence of youth-related 
characteristics and circumstances at the time of the offense]; In 
re Cook (2019) 7 Cal.5th 439, 458–459 [an offender whose 
sentence is otherwise final may obtain a Franklin hearing by 
filing a postjudgment motion in superior court].)  In his motion, 
Hardin acknowledged that, as an offender sentenced to life 
without parole for a crime committed as a young adult, he is not 
eligible for a youth offender parole hearing.  (§ 3051, subd. (h).)  
He contended, however, that his exclusion violates the Equal 
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal 
Constitution.  The superior court rejected the contention and 
denied Hardin’s motion.  The Court of Appeal, however, 
reversed.  (People v. Hardin (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 273, 291 
(Hardin).) 
On appeal, Hardin raised two equal protection arguments.  
He first argued that section 3051 violates equal protection by 
excluding young adult offenders sentenced to life without parole 
while including juvenile offenders (that is, offenders younger 
than 18 at the time of the offense) sentenced to life without 
parole.  The Court of Appeal rejected this argument.  It 
explained that the Legislature had a rational basis for 
distinguishing between juvenile offenders and young adult 
offenders, since a unique set of constitutional rules restricts 
sentencing children to life without parole.  (Hardin, supra, 84 
Cal.App.5th at pp. 285–286, citing, inter alia, Miller v. Alabama 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
5 
(2012) 567 U.S. 460 (Miller).)  Hardin does not challenge the 
Court of Appeal’s conclusion on this point.  
Hardin next argued that section 3051 violates equal 
protection by treating young adult offenders sentenced to life 
without parole for special circumstance murder differently from 
other young adult offenders serving parole-eligible life sentences 
for other crimes.  On this point, the Court of Appeal agreed with 
Hardin.  (Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 291.) 
Employing the two-step equal protection analysis 
prescribed by our cases (see, e.g., Conservatorship of Eric B. 
(2022) 12 Cal.5th 1085, 1102 (Eric B.)), the Court of Appeal 
began by considering whether, in light of the purposes of the 
challenged law, young adult offenders convicted of special 
circumstance murder and sentenced to life without parole are 
similarly situated to all other young offenders.  The court 
answered yes.  It explained that the Legislature’s stated purpose 
in enacting section 3051 was to permit “a determination 
whether a person who committed a serious or violent crime 
between the age of 18 and 25 has sufficiently matured and 
outgrown the youthful impulses that led to the commission of 
the offense.”  (Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 287.)  The 
court concluded that all young offenders are similarly situated 
from this standpoint, since a person’s potential for increased 
maturity and growth is not crime-specific.  (Ibid.)   
Turning to the next step of the analysis, the basis for the 
disparate treatment of similarly situated groups, the court 
concluded there was no rational basis for section 3051 to 
distinguish between young adult offenders convicted of special 
circumstance murder and sentenced to life without parole and 
other young adult offenders.  The court again adverted to the 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
6 
stated purpose of section 3051:  “[I]f, as the Legislature stated, 
the goal of section 3051 was . . . to permit youth offenders a 
meaningful opportunity for parole if they demonstrate increased 
maturity and impulse control, then for that purpose there is no 
plausible basis for distinguishing between same-age offenders 
based solely on the crime they committed.”  (Hardin, supra, 84 
Cal.App.5th at p. 288; see id. at pp. 278–279.) 
The Court of Appeal acknowledged other appellate cases 
had reached a different conclusion.  In those cases, the courts 
reasoned that the Legislature, in determining which young 
adult offenders should be afforded opportunities for early 
release, permissibly decided to take into account the seriousness 
of the offender’s crime and rationally decided to exclude those 
who had committed crimes sufficiently serious to warrant a 
sentence of life without parole.  (Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th 
pp. 288–289 [citing cases].)  But the court in this case rejected 
this “superficially plausible justification” as “belied by the 
statutory provisions that allow [a youth offender parole] hearing 
for individuals who have committed multiple violent crimes 
(albeit not special circumstance murder) and were sentenced to 
a technically parole-eligible indeterminate state prison term 
that is the functional equivalent of life without parole.”  (Id. at 
p. 289.)  The court also deemed “illusory” any differences 
between the culpability of individuals convicted of first degree 
murder without special circumstances and first degree murder 
with special circumstances.  (Id. at p. 290.)  The court relied for 
this conclusion on a law review article finding that, as a result 
of the expansion of the special circumstance statute over time, 
at least one special circumstance could have been alleged in 95 
percent of first degree murder cases.  (Id. at p. 290 & fn. 11 
[citing Com. on Revision of the Pen. Code, Annual Report and 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
7 
Recommendations (2021) p. 51, in turn citing Baldus et al., 
Furman at 45: Constitutional Challenges from California’s 
Failure to (Again) Narrow Death Eligibility (2019) 16 J. 
Empirical Legal Studies 693].)  Ultimately, finding no rational 
basis for the challenged life without parole exclusion, the court 
concluded that “the disparate treatment of offenders like Hardin 
cannot stand.”  (Hardin, at p. 291.) 
We granted review to resolve the conflict between the 
Court of Appeal’s decision in this case and the decisions of the 
other appellate courts to address the issue.1   
II. 
A. 
 
Section 3051 provides that, at a time designated in the 
statute, the Board of Parole Hearings must hold a parole 
hearing “for the purpose of reviewing the parole suitability of 
any prisoner who was 25 years of age or younger . . . at the time 
 
1  
The Court of Appeal in this case was the first to conclude 
that section 3051’s exclusion of young adults sentenced to life 
without parole violated equal protection.  Before Hardin, several 
published appellate opinions had reached the opposite 
conclusion.  (See In re Williams (2020) 57 Cal.App.5th 427; 
People v. Sands (2021) 70 Cal.App.5th 193; People v. Morales 
(2021) 67 Cal.App.5th 326; People v. Jackson (2021) 61 
Cal.App.5th 189; People v. Acosta (2021) 60 Cal.App.5th 769; 
People v. Montano (2022) 80 Cal.App.5th 82.)  More appellate 
decisions have done so since Hardin.  (People v. Ngo (2023) 89 
Cal.App.5th 116, review granted May 17, 2023, S279458; People 
v. Bolanos (2023) 87 Cal.App.5th 1069, review granted Apr. 12, 
2023, S278803 [distinguishing Hardin on the ground that it 
involved a murder conviction, as opposed to a sex offense 
conviction carrying a life without parole sentence under the One 
Strike law, Pen. Code, § 667.61].) 
 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
8 
of the controlling offense.”  (§ 3051, subd. (a)(1); id., subd. (d).)  
How much time must pass before an eligible youth offender 
receives a parole hearing depends on the length of the original 
sentence for the “ ‘[c]ontrolling offense,’ ” a term defined to mean 
“the offense or enhancement for which any sentencing court 
imposed the longest term of imprisonment.”  (Id., subd. 
(a)(2)(B).)  An offender sentenced to a determinate term becomes 
eligible for parole after 15 years (id., subd. (b)(1)); an offender 
sentenced to an indeterminate life term of fewer than 25 years 
to life becomes eligible after 20 years (id., subd. (b)(2)); and an 
offender sentenced to an indeterminate life term of 25 years to 
life, or an offender sentenced to life without parole for a crime 
committed before the age of 18, becomes eligible after 25 years 
(id., subd. (b)(3), (4)).   
 
Certain persons are, however, categorically ineligible for 
youth offender parole hearings, including offenders sentenced 
for multiple violent or serious felonies under the “Three Strikes” 
law (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subds. (b)–(i), 1170.12); offenders 
sentenced for sex offenses under the One Strike law (id., 
§ 667.61); and offenders who, “subsequent to attaining 26 years 
of age, commit[] an additional crime for which malice 
aforethought is a necessary element of the crime or for which 
the individual is sentenced to life in prison.”  (§ 3051, subd. (h).)  
The statute also excludes those who, like Hardin, are sentenced 
to life without parole for a controlling offense committed after 
reaching the age of 18.  (Ibid.)  In Hardin’s case, as in most of 
the appellate cases addressing the issue, the offense is first 
degree murder with one or more special circumstances.  (Pen. 
Code, § 190.2.) 
 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
9 
B. 
 
The Legislature first created this system of youth offender 
parole hearings in 2013, following a series of court decisions 
identifying Eighth Amendment limits on the sentencing of 
juvenile offenders.  (Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 1; see generally 
Franklin, supra, 63 Cal.4th at p. 277.)  In Roper v. Simmons 
(2005) 543 U.S. 551 (Roper), the high court held that the Eighth 
Amendment forbids imposing the death penalty for crimes 
committed before age 18, given the diminished culpability of 
juveniles relative to adult offenders.  (Roper, at p. 575.)  Five 
years later, the high court held in Graham v. Florida (2010) 560 
U.S. 48 (Graham) that the Eighth Amendment also forbids life 
without parole sentences for nonhomicide crimes committed 
before age 18.  (Graham, at p. 82.)  Finally, in Miller, supra, 567 
U.S. 460, the high court held that the Eighth Amendment 
forbids mandatory life without parole sentences for homicides 
committed before the age of 18.  (Miller, at pp. 479–480; see id. 
at pp. 477–478, 489.)   
 
In each case, the high court explained why juvenile 
offenders are “constitutionally different” from adult offenders 
for purposes of criminal sentencing.  (Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at 
p. 471.)  Relying “not only on common sense — on what ‘any 
parent knows’ — but on science and social science,” the court 
identified three primary differences between juveniles and 
adults.  (Ibid.)  First, the “hallmark features” of youth — “among 
them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks 
and consequences” — both diminish a child’s moral culpability 
and increase the chances that the child’s moral shortcomings 
will be reformed with age.  (Id. at p. 477; see id. at p. 472.)  
Second, children “ ‘are more vulnerable . . . to negative 
influences and outside pressures,’ including from their family 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
10 
and peers; they have limited ‘contro[l] over their own 
environment’ and lack the ability to extricate themselves from 
horrific, crime-producing settings.”  (Id. at p. 471, quoting 
Roper, supra, 543 U.S. at p. 569.)  And finally, compared to an 
adult, a juvenile’s character is “not as ‘well formed’ . . . his traits 
are ‘less fixed’ ” and thus “his actions less likely to be ‘evidence 
of irretrievabl[e] deprav[ity].’ ”  (Miller, at p. 471, quoting Roper, 
at p. 570.) 
 
In Graham and Roper, the court held that these features 
of youth categorically preclude a death sentence, or a sentence 
of life without parole for a nonhomicide offense.  But in ruling 
out life without parole sentences for nonhomicide offenses 
committed by juveniles, the court in Graham “took care” to 
distinguish 
homicide 
offenses, 
which 
raise 
different 
considerations as a matter of “both moral culpability and 
consequential harm.”  (Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at p. 473.)  When 
confronted with the issue in Miller, the court did not 
categorically rule out life without parole sentences for juvenile 
offenders, instead concluding that before a court may impose 
such a sentence, “a judge or jury must have the opportunity to 
consider mitigating circumstances,” including the hallmark 
features of youth and their relation to the offense.  (Id. at p. 489.)  
The court further observed that, in light of “children’s 
diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change, we 
think appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to th[e] 
harshest possible penalty [of life without parole] will be 
uncommon.  That is especially so because of the great difficulty 
we noted in Roper and Graham of distinguishing at this early 
age between ‘the juvenile offender whose crime reflects 
unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
11 
offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.’ ”  (Id. at 
pp. 479–480, quoting Graham, supra, 560 U.S. at p. 68.)   
 
Not long after the high court issued its decision in Miller, 
this court clarified in People v. Caballero (2012) 55 Cal.4th 262, 
268 (Caballero) that Graham’s prohibition on life without parole 
sentences for juvenile nonhomicide offenders applies to a term-
of-years sentence that is “the functional equivalent of a life 
without parole sentence” — there, a sentence of 110 years.  
(Ibid.)  Without dictating “a precise timeframe” for holding 
parole hearings for juvenile offenders who had received actual 
or de facto life sentences for nonhomicide crimes, this court 
explained that, under Graham, “a state must provide a juvenile 
offender ‘with some realistic opportunity to obtain release’ from 
prison during his or her expected lifetime.”  (Id. at pp. 269, 268.) 
 
The Legislature enacted section 3051 to bring California 
juvenile sentencing law into line with Graham, Miller, and 
Caballero.  (Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 1; see Franklin, supra, 63 
Cal.4th at p. 268; id. at pp. 278–280 [holding that the youth 
offender parole statute remedied any Eighth Amendment 
defects in the sentences of juvenile offenders].)  In language 
echoing the holdings of these cases, section 3051 provided for 
youth offender parole hearings at which the Board of Parole 
Hearings must provide “a meaningful opportunity” for release 
(§ 3051, subd. (e)), giving “great weight to the diminished 
culpability of youth as compared to adults, the hallmark 
features of youth, and any subsequent growth and increased 
maturity” (Pen. Code, § 4801, subd. (c)). 
 
As initially enacted, section 3051 provided youth offender 
parole hearings only for juvenile offenders incarcerated for 
crimes committed before the age of 18.  (Former § 3051, subd. 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
12 
(a)(1), added by Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 4.)  But it did not include 
all juvenile offenders; the statute excluded several categories of 
individuals, including juvenile offenders sentenced to life 
without possibility of parole.  (Former § 3051, subd. (h), added 
by Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 4.)  A different statute, enacted not 
long before section 3051, had created an alternative mechanism 
for relief that, with some exceptions, permitted juvenile 
offenders sentenced to life without parole to petition for recall of 
sentence and resentencing to a term that included an 
opportunity for parole.  (Stats. 2012, ch. 828, adding Pen. Code, 
§ 1170, subd. (d).)   
 
Since the youth offender parole statute was first enacted, 
the Legislature has expanded it in two primary respects.  The 
first area of change concerns juvenile offenders sentenced to life 
without possibility of parole.  In 2017, this court concluded the 
recall and resentencing scheme did not provide an adequate 
remedy for juvenile offenders who had been sentenced to life 
without parole terms without adequate consideration of the 
youth-related factors set out in Miller.  (In re Kirchner (2017) 2 
Cal.5th 1040, 1043 (Kirchner).)  That same year, the Legislature 
expanded section 3051 to include juvenile offenders sentenced 
to life without parole, making them eligible for youth offender 
parole hearings after their 25th year of incarceration.  (Stats. 
2017, ch. 684, § 1.5, adding § 3051, subd. (b)(4); see Assem. Com. 
on Public Safety, Analysis of Sen. Bill No. 394 (2017–2018 Reg. 
Sess.) as amended May 26, 2017, p. 1.) 
 
The second area of change concerns the statute’s 
application to older offenders.  In 2015, the Legislature raised 
the age of eligibility for youth offender parole hearings to include 
most young adults incarcerated for offenses committed before 
the age of 23.  (Stats. 2015, ch. 471, § 1.)  In expanding section 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
13 
3051 beyond the constitutional minimum age of 18 set out in 
Graham and Miller, the Legislature considered scientific 
evidence that neurological development, particularly in areas of 
the brain relevant to judgment and decisionmaking, continues 
beyond adolescence and into the mid-20’s.  (See Sen. Com. on 
Public Safety, Rep. on Sen. Bill No. 261 (2015–2016 Reg. Sess.) 
Apr. 28, 2015, p. 3.)  In 2017, motivated by these same 
considerations, the Legislature once again raised the age cut-off 
for section 3051 parole hearings, this time to age 25.  (Stats. 
2017, ch. 675, § 1; see Assem. Com. on Public Safety, Analysis of 
Assem. Bill No. 1308 (2017–2018 Reg. Sess.) as amended Mar. 
30, 2017, p. 2.)   
 
The expansion to young adults did not, however, include 
all persons who committed crimes between the age of 18 and 25:  
The Legislature carried forward preexisting exclusions, 
including the exclusion for those sentenced to life in prison 
without the possibility of parole.  (See Assem. Com. on Public 
Safety, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 1308, supra, as amended 
Mar. 30, 2017, p. 2.)  Similarly, when it expanded the youth 
offender parole system to include juvenile offenders sentenced 
to life without parole, the Legislature preserved the life without 
parole exclusion for youthful offenders who committed their 
controlling offense after the age of 18.  (See Assem. Com. on 
Public Safety, Analysis of Sen. Bill No. 394, supra, as amended 
May 26, 2017, p. 1.)   
 
Hardin challenges the statute’s exclusion of young adult 
offenders sentenced to life without parole as violative of equal 
protection.  As noted, in the trial court, Hardin challenged the 
statute’s disparate treatment of juvenile and young adult 
offenders sentenced to life without possibility of parole.  But the 
Court of Appeal in this case held, and he does not dispute, that 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
14 
the Legislature acted reasonably in distinguishing between 
offenses committed before and after the age of 18 because the 
Eighth Amendment (and the law more generally) makes the 
same distinction.  (Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at pp. 285–
286 [noting that age 18 generally marks the difference between 
childhood and adulthood].)   
 
As the case comes to us, the parties agree that the 
Legislature was not constitutionally obligated to expand youth 
offender parole opportunities to young adults over the age of 18.  
Hardin argues, however, that once the Legislature decided to 
expand such opportunities to young adults, it could not 
rationally treat those sentenced to life without parole differently 
from those convicted of other serious crimes and serving lengthy 
parole-eligible sentences.  Once the Legislature decided to 
include one class of young adult offenders, it was obligated to 
include both.   
 
Hardin effectively challenges the life without parole 
exclusion on its face, in all of its applications.  He also challenges 
the exclusion more specifically as it applies to young adult 
offenders who are, like him, serving life without parole 
sentences following convictions for first degree murder with one 
or more special circumstances.  
III. 
 
The 
Equal 
Protection 
Clause 
of 
the 
Fourteenth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no 
state may “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
15 
protection of the laws.”2  (U.S. Const., 14th Amend.)  This 
provision is “essentially a direction that all persons similarly 
situated should be treated alike.”  (Cleburne v. Cleburne Living 
Center, Inc. (1985) 473 U.S. 432, 439 (Cleburne).)  “At core, the 
requirement of equal protection ensures that the government 
does not treat a group of people unequally without some 
justification.”  (People v. Chatman (2018) 4 Cal.5th 277, 288 
(Chatman).)   
 
The degree of justification required to satisfy equal 
protection depends on the type of unequal treatment at issue.  
Courts apply heightened scrutiny when a challenged statute or 
other regulation involves a suspect classification such as race, 
or a fundamental right such as the right to vote, and accordingly 
will demand greater justification for the differential treatment.  
(E.g., Chatman, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p. 288; Massachusetts Bd. of 
Retirement v. Murgia (1976) 427 U.S. 307, 312.)  But when a 
statute involves neither a suspect classification nor a 
fundamental right, the “general rule is that legislation is 
presumed to be valid and will be sustained if the classification 
drawn by the statute is rationally related to a legitimate state 
interest.”  (Cleburne, supra, 473 U.S. at p. 440; see Chatman, at 
pp. 288–289.)  A court applying this standard finds “a denial of 
equal protection only if there is no rational relationship between 
 
2  
The California Constitution also guarantees equal 
protection of the law.  (Cal. Const., art. I, § 7, subd. (a).)  Hardin 
does not raise any arguments specific to the California 
Constitution, however, and we see “ ‘no reason to suppose’ that 
federal equal protection analysis would yield a result different 
from what would emerge from analysis of the state 
Constitution.”  (Chatman, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p. 288.) 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
16 
a disparity in treatment and some legitimate government 
purpose.”  (Chatman, at pp. 288–289.)   
 
Here, both sides agree that rational basis review applies; 
Hardin makes no argument that this case involves a suspect 
classification or a fundamental right.  (See Chatman, supra, 4 
Cal.5th at pp. 282, 287 [rational basis review applied to evaluate 
constitutionality 
of 
law 
prescribing 
different 
collateral 
consequences for different types of criminal convictions]; People 
v. Wilkinson (2004) 33 Cal.4th 821, 838 (Wilkinson) [A 
defendant “ ‘does not have a fundamental interest in a specific 
term of imprisonment’ ”].)   
 
In the past, our cases have set out a two-part inquiry to 
evaluate equal protection claims.  “We first ask whether the 
state adopted a classification affecting two or more groups that 
are similarly situated in an unequal manner.  [Citation.]  If we 
deem the groups at issue similarly situated in all material 
respects, we consider whether the challenged classification” is 
adequately justified.  (Chatman, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p. 289.)  In 
a case, like this one, subject to rational basis review, the 
question is “whether the challenged classification ultimately 
bears a rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose.”  
(Ibid.)  
The Courts of Appeal that have addressed the issue 
presented here concerning the life without parole exclusion have 
fractured over the proper analysis of the threshold “similarly 
situated” inquiry.  At this first step of the two-part equal 
protection inquiry, the reviewing court asks “not whether 
persons are similarly situated for all purposes, but ‘whether 
they are similarly situated for purposes of the law challenged.’ ”  
(Cooley v. Superior Court (2002) 29 Cal.4th 228, 253, quoting 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
17 
People v. Gibson (1988) 204 Cal.App.3d 1425, 1438.)  If the 
challenging party fails to satisfy this threshold “ ‘similarly 
situated’ ” inquiry, the equal protection analysis is at an end.  
(Cooley, at p. 254.) 
The Court of Appeal in this case held that offenders 
serving life without parole sentences are, for purposes of the 
youth offender parole statute, similarly situated to offenders 
serving parole-eligible life terms for offenses committed at the 
same age.  It then went on to hold that the statute’s disparate 
treatment of the two groups is not adequately justified.  
(Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at pp. 287–288, 290.)  Several 
other courts have likewise concluded that the groups are 
similarly situated for purposes of the challenged law, but that 
the difference in treatment is justified.  A still larger group of 
courts have concluded that the groups are not similarly situated 
for purposes of the law, while citing essentially the same reasons 
other courts have cited at the justification step of the inquiry.  
And the largest group of courts have avoided the question by 
assuming without deciding that the two groups are similarly 
situated and proceeding to hold that the difference in treatment 
is justified under rational basis review. 
Despite this state of uncertainty, the Attorney General 
asks us to join the group of courts that have avoided the issue 
by assuming without deciding that a young adult offender 
serving a parole eligible life sentence is similarly situated to an 
individual serving a sentence of life without parole for an offense 
committed at a similar age.  The Attorney General thus would 
have us proceed directly to the operative question, which is 
whether the disparate treatment has a rational basis. 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
18 
We have taken this assume-without-deciding approach to 
the “similarly situated” inquiry in other recent equal protection 
cases and could do the same here.  (Chatman, supra, 4 Cal.5th 
at p. 290 [moving to the second step of the equal protection 
analysis without deciding the first, “similarly situated” step]; 
Johnson v. Department of Justice (2015) 60 Cal.4th 871, 882 
(Johnson).)  But to do so would simply perpetuate the 
uncertainty that has led courts to so many different conclusions 
about how the “similarly situated” test ought to apply, and that 
has so often led both this court and the Courts of Appeal to avoid 
the test altogether. 
 
There is a reason for this uncertainty.  As we recognized 
decades ago, in cases involving challenges to statutes like 
section 3051, subdivision (h) that facially distinguish between 
identifiable groups or classes of individuals, “[t]o ask whether 
two groups are similarly situated in this context,” given the 
interests underlying the law challenged, is essentially “the same 
as asking whether the distinction between them can be justified 
under the appropriate test of equal protection.”  (Fullerton Joint 
Union High School Dist. v. State Bd. of Education (1982) 32 
Cal.3d 779, 798, fn. 19 (plur. opn.).)  This is because one can only 
reach the conclusion that two groups are similarly situated with 
respect to the purposes of a particular law after considering the 
law’s aims and how the differential treatment relates to those 
aims.  But the first, “similarly situated” step of the analysis 
provides substantially less guidance about how this inquiry is to 
proceed:  “How similarly situated, precisely, relative to which 
aims?  These are questions courts already explore at the 
justification step, using the tiers of scrutiny to guide their 
answers.”  (Eric B., supra, 12 Cal.5th at p. 1115 (conc. opn. of 
Kruger, J.).)  In the context of challenges like this one, the 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
19 
similarly situated test serves no real purpose.  At best it 
duplicates the justification inquiry prescribed at the second step 
of the analysis; at worst it creates an unnecessary threshold 
obstacle to the adjudication of potentially meritorious 
constitutional challenges; and in all events it injects 
unnecessary uncertainty into the analysis, particularly in the 
situations in which the challenged law reflects multiple, 
sometimes competing aims.   
Our cases purported to derive the threshold “similarly 
situated” test from United States Supreme Court guidance, but 
the high court itself has not employed any similar threshold test 
in equal protection cases involving challenges to facial legal 
classifications.  (See, e.g., Cleburne, supra, 473 U.S. at pp. 439–
450.)  Even when this court first began to speak in terms of a 
“similarly situated” test, it did not initially understand this to 
mean that courts must always engage in that inquiry as a 
separate analytical step.  (See In re Roger S. (1977) 19 Cal.3d 
921; In re Eric J. (1979) 25 Cal.3d 522.)  Rather, courts reciting 
the rules of these cases over time came to lay out a two-step 
analysis, even though no court ever identified precisely what 
independent function the first step is supposed to serve.  
Unsurprisingly, then, courts did not apply it consistently, often 
adopting an approach of assuming-without-deciding that the 
groups or classes facing disparate treatment are similarly 
situated, or skipping the inquiry altogether, to reach the critical 
question of whether the justification for the alleged disparate 
treatment is adequate.  (See, e.g., Chatman, supra, 4 Cal.5th at 
p. 290; Johnson, supra, 60 Cal.4th at p. 882; Hernandez v. City 
of Hanford (2007) 41 Cal.4th 279, 299 (Hernandez); People v. 
Floyd (2003) 31 Cal.4th 179, 190.)   
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
20 
 
After directing the parties and inviting amici curiae to 
address this issue, none has identified any substantive reason 
why we should continue to prescribe a two-step analysis in cases 
like this one, in which the only real question is whether a facial 
difference in treatment is adequately justified by the purposes 
the law was meant to serve.  The primary concern raised by the 
Attorney General relates to stare decisis — the idea that once 
an issue is decided, it should ordinarily remain decided.   
Stare decisis plays a vitally important role in our work as 
a common law court; the policy of adherence to precedent 
ensures the certainty, stability, and predictability on which the 
rule of law depends.  But stare decisis concerns have no real 
place here.  The doctrine “does not ‘ “shield court-created error 
from correction” ’ ” but “permits us ‘to reconsider, and ultimately 
to depart from, our own prior precedent in an appropriate 
case.’ ”  (People v. Mendoza (2000) 23 Cal.4th 896, 924.)  Here, 
none of the factors we have identified as relevant to the question 
of adherence to precedent — including “the age of the precedent, 
the nature and extent of public and private reliance on it, and 
its consistency or inconsistency with other related rules of law” 
(Trope v. Katz (1995) 11 Cal.4th 274, 288) — suggests we are 
bound to preserve an analytical framework that has generated 
uncertainty and confusion, with no discernible effect on the 
actual outcomes of cases.   
For these reasons, we now hold that, when plaintiffs 
challenge laws drawing distinctions between identifiable groups 
or classes of persons, on the basis that the distinctions drawn 
are inconsistent with equal protection, courts no longer need to 
ask at the threshold whether the two groups are similarly 
situated for purposes of the law in question.  The only pertinent 
inquiry is whether the challenged difference in treatment is 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
21 
adequately justified under the applicable standard of review.  
The burden is on the party challenging the law to show that it 
is not. 
To be clear, we cast no doubt on the utility of “similarly 
situated” inquiries in other contexts.  In cases that do not 
involve challenges to classifications appearing on the face of the 
law, to ask whether a person has been treated differently from 
another person similarly situated is typically how we determine 
whether a person has been treated differently on the basis of 
group membership or another actionable basis.  We do not call 
into question the established role the similarly situated inquiry 
plays in, for instance, cases involving claims of group-based 
discrimination against individuals, in which plaintiffs bear the 
burden of showing disparate treatment along class lines, or so-
called “class of one” cases that do not allege differential 
treatment on the basis of class membership.  (See, e.g., United 
States v. Armstrong (1996) 517 U.S. 456, 465–467; Village of 
Willowbrook v. Olech (2000) 528 U.S. 562, 564.)   
Nor, in dispensing with the threshold “similarly situated” 
test in equal protection challenges like this one, do we call into 
question any of this court’s precedent that purported to dispose 
of an equal protection challenge upon deciding that the 
challenged disparate treatment did not involve groups that were 
similarly situated for purposes of the law in question.  As we 
have explained, the conclusion in each of those cases could just 
as well have been cast as a conclusion about whether the 
difference in treatment was adequately justified under the 
applicable standard of review.  (See, e.g., People v. Salazar 
(2016) 63 Cal.4th 214, 227 [noting individuals who commit a 
capital crime after being convicted of a juvenile murder in 
superior court are not similarly situated to those whose prior 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
22 
murder was adjudicated in juvenile court, because the 
Legislature may fairly distinguish these groups based on 
culpability]; People v. Johnson (1992) 3 Cal.4th 1183, 1242–1243 
[noting capital defendants are not similarly situated to those 
subject to ordinary sentencing enhancements because of the 
aggravating circumstances surrounding the capital offense].) 
 
Having thus clarified the governing analytical framework, 
we turn to the central inquiry in this case:  whether there is a 
rational basis justifying section 3051’s disparate treatment of 
individuals who, like Hardin, are serving sentences of life 
without parole for special circumstance murder. 
IV. 
A. 
 
Rational basis review “sets a high bar” for litigants 
challenging legislative enactments.  (Chatman, supra, 4 Cal.5th 
at p. 289.)  The reasons for this lie at the heart of our democratic 
system of governance.  “Coupled with a rebuttable presumption 
that legislation is constitutional, [rational basis review] helps 
ensure that democratically enacted laws are not invalidated 
merely based on a court’s cursory conclusion that a statute’s 
tradeoffs seem unwise or unfair.”  (Ibid.)    
 
Under this deferential standard, we presume that a given 
statutory classification is valid “until the challenger shows that 
no rational basis for the unequal treatment is reasonably 
conceivable.”  (Chatman, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p. 289.)  The 
underlying rationale for a statutory classification need not have 
been “ever actually articulated” by lawmakers, nor “be 
empirically substantiated.”  (People v. Turnage, supra, 55 
Cal.4th at pp. 74, 75 (Turnage).)  Evaluating potential 
justifications for disparate treatment, a court reviewing a 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
23 
statute under this standard must “treat the statute’s potential 
logic and assumptions far more permissively than with other 
standards of constitutional or regulatory review.”  (Chatman, at 
p. 294.)  “If a plausible basis exists for the disparity, courts may 
not second-guess its ‘ “wisdom, fairness, or logic.” ’ ”  (Johnson, 
supra, 60 Cal.4th at p. 881.)  “[T]he logic behind a potential 
justification need [not] be persuasive or sensible — rather than 
simply rational.”  (Chatman, at p. 289.)3 
B. 
 
Hardin’s central argument is that section 3051’s exclusion 
of offenders sentenced to life without possibility of parole has no 
rational basis because it is inconsistent with what he 
understands to be the “sole” purpose behind the statute:  to 
create “a meaningful opportunity for release for youthful 
 
3  
The high court has on occasion applied a more searching 
form of rational basis review that looks to the Legislature’s 
actual motivations in enacting a statute rather than 
hypothesized ones.  (See, e.g., U.S. Dept. of Agriculture v. 
Moreno (1973) 413 U.S. 528, 535–538.)  The high court has 
generally reserved this form of review for cases in which the sole 
motivation underlying the enactment is baseless prejudice 
against a politically unpopular group.  (See, e.g., ibid.; Cleburne, 
supra, 473 U.S. at pp. 448–450.)  Those are not the 
circumstances we confront here, and no party argues otherwise.   
Justice Liu lays out an argument for reconsidering 
rational basis review under our state equal protection guarantee 
to require a focus on the Legislature’s actual, rather than 
hypothesized, reasons for the challenged classification.  (Dis. 
opn. of Liu, J., post, at p. 21.)  We note, however, that our 
analysis focuses on the apparent motivations underlying the 
challenged classification, as revealed in the statutory text and 
history; we do not endeavor to exhaustively catalog all 
conceivable concerns that might be hypothesized in support of 
the challenged distinction. 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
24 
offenders, who were 25 or younger at the time of their crimes, 
through demonstrated growth and rehabilitation.”  Pointing to 
the high court’s reasoning concerning juvenile offenders in 
Miller, supra, 567 U.S. 460, and the scientific research that 
prompted the Legislature to expand section 3051 to young 
adults, Hardin contends that all youthful offenders, by virtue of 
their age and the limitations associated with still-developing 
judgment and impulse control, possess the same characteristics 
that prompted the enactment and expansion of section 3051, 
including diminished culpability and the potential for change.  
 
Hardin acknowledges the core of the counterargument.  “It 
is both the prerogative and the duty of the Legislature to define 
degrees of culpability and punishment, and to distinguish 
between crimes in this regard.”  (Turnage, supra, 55 Cal.4th at 
p. 74.)  Life without parole is the most severe sentence of 
imprisonment in California law, applicable only in cases of 
special circumstance murder and a small number of other 
offenses the law regards as particularly serious.4  By excluding 
persons sentenced to life without parole from youth offender 
parole proceedings, the Legislature exercised its prerogative to 
define degrees of culpability and punishment by leaving in place 
 
4  
These offenses include certain aggravated sex offenses 
against minors (Pen. Code, § 667.61, subds. (j)(1), (l)); 
kidnapping for ransom resulting in death or bodily harm or 
exposure to a substantial likelihood of death (id., § 209, subd. 
(a)); certain felonies inflicting great bodily injury that are 
committed by a “habitual offender” (id., § 667.7, subd. (a)); hate 
crime first degree murder (id., § 190.03, subd. (a)); willful and 
malicious ignition of an explosive device causing death (id., 
§ 18755, subd. (a)); and intentional train wrecking (id., §§ 218, 
219). 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
25 
longstanding judgments about the seriousness of these crimes 
and, relatedly, the punishment for them.   
 
Hardin asserts, however, that the seriousness of the 
offenses “provides no basis for their exclusion because the 
purpose of the statute was ameliorative, not punitive.”  The 
Court of Appeal made a similar point:  “[I]f, as the Legislature 
stated, the goal of section 3051 was to apply the Miller youth-
related mitigating factors to young adults up to the age of 26 in 
light of neuroscience research that demonstrated the human 
brain continues to develop into a person’s mid-20’s, and thus to 
permit youth offenders a meaningful opportunity for parole if 
they demonstrate increased maturity and impulse control, then 
for that purpose there is no plausible basis for distinguishing 
between same-age offenders based solely on the crime they 
committed.”  (Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 288.)   
 
This argument rests on the premise that “there was only 
a single purpose underlying” section 3051.  (Hernandez, supra, 
41 Cal.4th at p. 300.)  But as we explained in Hernandez, 
legislation does not always — or even often — work this way.  
Legislation is frequently the “ ‘product of multiple and 
somewhat 
inconsistent 
purposes 
that 
led 
to 
certain 
compromises.’ ”  (Id. at p. 301, quoting U. S. Railroad 
Retirement Bd. v. Fritz (1980) 449 U.S. 116, 181 (conc. opn. of 
Stevens, J.).)  This is only to be expected, for “[d]eciding what 
competing values will or will not be sacrificed to the 
achievement of a particular objective is the very essence of 
legislative choice.”  (Rodriguez v. United States (1987) 480 U.S. 
522, 526.)  “Past cases establish that the equal protection clause 
does not preclude a . . . legislative measure that is aimed at 
achieving multiple objectives, even when such objectives in some 
respects may be in tension or conflict.”  (Hernandez, at p. 300.)   
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
26 
 
Section 3051 is such a measure.  No one doubts that the 
Legislature’s primary purpose in expanding section 3051 to 
include young adult offenders was to give these young persons 
the opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated growth 
and rehabilitation.  Even though the Eighth Amendment 
requires that this opportunity be afforded only to persons who 
committed their crimes as juveniles, the Legislature determined 
that comparable opportunities should be available to some older 
offenders as well.  But the structure and history of the expansion 
make clear that the Legislature sought to balance this primary 
objective with other, sometimes competing, concerns, including 
concerns about culpability and the appropriate level of 
punishment for certain very serious crimes.  
 
This balancing has been evident throughout the history of 
the youth offender parole statute.  Even as initially drafted, the 
statute did not categorically extend youth offender parole 
hearings to all persons below the age of 18, but instead 
distinguished between offenders based on the crimes they 
committed.  (Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 1; former § 3051, added by 
Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 4; cf. Sen. Com. on Appropriations, 
Analysis of Sen. Bill No. 394 (2017–2018 Reg. Sess.) Apr. 17, 
2017, p. 2 [“[The bill that created section 3051] established a 
parole process for persons sentenced to prison for certain crimes 
committed before attaining 18 years of age” (italics added)].)  
Through multiple rounds of statutory amendments gradually 
expanding the statute, the Legislature retained crime-based 
distinctions, and the legislative history accompanying the 
amendments confirms that these were deliberate choices.  (See, 
e.g., Assem. Com. on Appropriations, Analysis of Assem. Bill 
No. 1308 (2017–2018 Reg. Sess.) as amended Mar. 30, 2017, p. 2 
[“Some offenders are not eligible [for parole hearings] based on 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
27 
the crime that was committed, or actions taken by the inmate 
after the age of 23” (italics added)]; Sen. Com. on Public Safety, 
Rep. on Sen. Bill No. 394 (2017–2018 Reg. Sess.) Mar. 21, 2017, 
p. 4 [“This bill would apply the youth offender parole process to 
juveniles sentenced to [life without parole]. . . .  [¶]  The bill 
makes clear that . . . the provisions applying to juvenile [life 
without parole] apply only to those sentenced before the age of 
18” and thus exclude individuals sentenced to life without parole 
for crimes committed after the age of 18].)   
 
The end result is that under the youth offender parole 
statute as enacted and since amended, the nature of the 
sentence received for a particular crime — what the statute 
terms the “controlling offense” — sometimes determines 
whether an individual is eligible for a youth offender parole 
hearing in the first instance.  And for those who are eligible, the 
nature of the sentence determines when they will receive such a 
hearing:  whether after 15, 20, or 25 years.  In other words, in 
designing section 3051, the Legislature consciously drew lines 
that altered the parole component of offenders’ sentences based 
not only on the age of the offender (and thus the offender’s 
amenability to rehabilitation) but also on the offense and 
sentence imposed.  The lines the Legislature drew necessarily 
reflect a set of legislative judgments about the nature of 
punishment that is appropriate for the crime.   
 
It may be true, as Hardin argues, that these crime-based 
categories are not rationally related to the Legislature’s purpose 
of expanding opportunities for early release based on the 
attributes of youth since, as Miller explained, the attributes of 
youth are not “crime-specific.”  (Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at 
p. 473.)  No doubt the Legislature — which consciously enacted 
section 3051 in language that borrowed from Miller and other 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
28 
Eighth Amendment juvenile sentencing cases — was aware of 
this point.  The Legislature nonetheless crafted a statutory 
scheme that assigns significance to the nature of underlying 
offenses and accompanying sentences.  The most natural 
conclusion to draw from this is not, as Hardin would have it, 
that the Legislature enacted a statute at odds with its own 
rehabilitative ends, but instead that the Legislature — as 
legislatures often do — was attempting to pursue other 
“ ‘(perhaps even contrary) ends as well.’ ”  (Hernandez, supra, 41 
Cal.4th at p. 301, quoting Fitzgerald v. Racing Assn. of Central 
Iowa (2003) 539 U.S. 103, 108.)   
 
The statutory framework indicates that the Legislature 
aimed to increase opportunities for meaningful release for young 
adult offenders, while taking into account the appropriate 
punishment for the underlying crimes, depending on their 
severity.  These are essentially the same considerations involved 
whenever the Legislature exercises its responsibility “for 
determining which class of crimes deserves certain punishments 
and which crimes should be distinguished from others.”  
(Wilkinson, supra, 33 Cal.4th at p. 840.)  They are also not 
dissimilar from the considerations that prompted the high court 
to distinguish, for Eighth Amendment purposes, between 
sentencing juveniles for homicide offenses and sentencing 
juveniles for nonhomicide offenses.  (Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at 
p. 473 [based on considerations of “both moral culpability and 
consequential harm,” juvenile homicide offenders, unlike 
juvenile nonhomicide offenders, may be sentenced to life without 
possibility of parole, but only after individualized sentencing 
that gives appropriate consideration to the mitigating attributes 
of youth].)  Much as the high court invoked culpability-related 
concerns to distinguish among crimes in that context, it is 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
29 
reasonable to infer that the Legislature considered such 
concerns in this one. 
 
Hardin argues that the Legislature’s decision to adopt a 
parole process indicates it was unconcerned with culpability and 
instead had only rehabilitation in mind.  If the Legislature had 
been concerned with calibrating the appropriate sentence for 
particular crimes, Hardin reasons, the Legislature could have 
instead enacted a statute providing for the recall of sentence and 
resentencing, as it had done in Penal Code section 1170, 
subdivision (d) — the predecessor statute to section 3051 
discussed in Kirchner, supra, 2 Cal.5th at pages 1049–1050 — 
and as it has done in other recently enacted ameliorative 
statutes (e.g., Pen. Code, § 1172.6; see People v. Lewis (2021) 11 
Cal.5th 952, 959–960).  In Hardin’s view it is “telling” that the 
Legislature instead enacted a parole process, since “California’s 
parole process explicitly measures rehabilitation. . . .  To the 
extent the crime of commitment can be taken into consideration 
at all, it is only for purposes of determining the present level of 
risk.” 
 
What Hardin says is true of the task of the Parole Board 
at a parole hearing.  (§ 3051, subd. (d), citing Pen. Code, § 3041; 
see Pen. Code, § 3041, subd. (b)(1) [“The panel . . . shall grant 
parole . . . unless it determines that the gravity of . . . current or 
past convicted offense or offenses . . . is such that consideration 
of the public safety requires a more lengthy period of 
incarceration”].)  But the Legislature has a different role, which 
is to determine not only whether an incarcerated individual may 
be suitable for release on parole, but when and whether it is 
appropriate to afford that individual the opportunity to 
demonstrate suitability for release.  Parole eligibility is 
frequently an important component of the sentence prescribed 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
30 
for a crime, and so the Legislature frequently considers multiple 
sentencing objectives — including both the prospects for 
rehabilitation and the degree of culpability demonstrated by the 
crime — in determining when, and if, a particular category of 
offenders will become eligible for a parole hearing.   
 
Hardin also argues that section 3051’s focus on the 
“controlling offense” — that is, the single “offense or 
enhancement for which any sentencing court imposed the 
longest term of imprisonment” (§ 3051, subd. (a)(2)(B)) — is 
indicative of the Legislature’s rehabilitative concerns rather 
than concerns with appropriate punishment.  Hardin points out, 
for example, that the statute sets a 25-year eligibility date for 
all youthful offenders who have received a sentence of 25 years 
to life for any one offense or enhancement — even if another 
individual with the same youth offender parole eligibility date 
may be serving a much longer aggregate sentence on account of 
other crimes; and even if the offender’s “controlling offense” is 
merely an enhancement, rather than a substantive crime.  
Hardin argues that the Legislature that enacted section 3051 
therefore must not have been concerned with the relatively 
greater culpability of the individual with the longer aggregate 
sentence, or of the substantive crime to which the longer 
enhancement was attached.   
 
To be sure, the statute’s “controlling offense” framework 
does rely on a certain amount of generalization about the 
relationship between the lengthiest individual sentence the 
offender has received and the culpability of the underlying 
criminal conduct.  But “ ‘[w]hen conducting rational basis 
review, we must accept any gross generalizations and rough 
accommodations that the Legislature seems to have made.’ ”  
(Turnage, supra, 55 Cal.4th at p. 77.)  Hardin’s argument 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
31 
presumes there is only one way to evaluate culpability for these 
purposes — by focusing on the offender’s entire criminal history 
rather than examining an individual offense, or by focusing on 
substantive crimes and ignoring the role of sentence 
enhancements.  But these are not the only possible ways to 
evaluate culpability.  That the Legislature may have prescribed 
a measurement of culpability different from Hardin’s does not 
mean the Legislature was not attempting to measure culpability 
at all.  While section 3051 is not, in terms, a statute prescribing 
sentences for particular crimes, it does “set[] the consequences 
of criminal offenses.”  (Johnson, supra, 60 Cal.4th at p. 887.)  It 
is reasonable to infer that in setting those consequences through 
operation of the youth offender parole system, the Legislature 
balanced multiple considerations, including both concerns about 
increasing opportunities for release for young adults able to 
show growth and maturity and concerns about calibrating the 
level of punishment appropriate for certain serious criminal 
offenses.     
 
Hardin also suggests that, by enacting a system of single-
offense-based staggered eligibility terms and exclusions, the 
Legislature was attempting to capture the moment when, based 
on the sentence received for a single offense or enhancement, “a 
person might be first expected to demonstrate meaningful 
rehabilitation.”  Hardin provides no logical or evidentiary 
support for this view.  It is unclear how the Legislature could 
have determined that 15 years marks the relevant line of 
maturation for an offender who received a determinate sentence 
for a controlling offense; 20 years marks the maturation line for 
an offender sentenced to a life term of less than 25 years to life; 
and so on.  But more fundamentally, this is not an either/or 
matter.  Parole eligibility dates are an important component of 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
32 
the sentences prescribed for crimes.  As such, they 
presumptively reflect the full range of usual penological 
considerations, 
including 
rehabilitative 
and 
retributive 
purposes.  Even assuming the staggered parole eligibility terms 
reflect some set of legislative judgments about when an offender 
is most likely to be rehabilitated, the critical point is that they 
also necessarily reflect a judgment about the degree to which the 
youth offender parole statute should reduce potential 
punishment.  Concerns about both appropriate punishment and 
rehabilitation underlie this provision, just as the same balance 
of penological considerations underlie the other provisions of the 
statute.  These are unquestionably legitimate purposes.  (E.g., 
Wilkinson, supra, 33 Cal.4th at p. 840.)  The exclusion that 
Hardin challenges may or may not be rationally related to those 
purposes — we will turn to that question below — but the 
exclusion is not invalid simply because it reflects interests on 
the other side of a legislative balance. 
 
Finally, Hardin argues that the other exclusions from 
youth offender parole eligibility set forth in section 3051, 
subdivision (h) “further undermine the rationality of the 
statute.”  The only question before us here concerns the 
constitutionality of the exclusion of youthful offenders sentenced 
to life without parole, and there is no occasion for us to pass 
judgment on the validity of any other exclusion.  It suffices to 
observe, however, that nothing in the other exclusions 
undermines the conclusion that the Legislature that crafted the 
youth offender parole statute was attempting to balance 
multiple penological considerations in addition to rehabilitation.  
Whether or not each of the other exclusions is adequately 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
33 
justified in light of those considerations is beyond the scope of 
our inquiry in this case.5 
C. 
 
Hardin argues that even if the life without parole 
exclusion reflects culpability-related concerns, it nonetheless 
fails rational basis review because there is no reasonable basis 
to conclude that young adult offenders sentenced to life without 
parole are more culpable or less deserving of the opportunity for 
release than other young adult offenders.  Hardin’s arguments 
focus specifically on individuals who, like him, received life 
without parole sentences following convictions for special 
circumstance murder.  The Legislature, he argues, “would have 
had no rational basis to distinguish between youthful offenders 
sentenced to life without parole for special circumstance murder 
and youthful offenders sentenced either to the functional 
equivalent of life without parole or to indeterminate life terms 
for first degree murder.  That is because, from a culpability 
standpoint, these groups cannot rationally be distinguished.”  
Hardin, however, fails to demonstrate that the life without 
parole exclusion is irrational, and therefore unconstitutional, as 
applied to individuals sentenced for special circumstance 
murder. 
 
In California, a conviction for first degree murder 
generally results in a life sentence with parole eligibility after 
 
5  
We do not, for instance, decide the issue presented in 
People v. Williams (2020) 47 Cal.App.5th 475, review granted July 
22, 2020, S262229, in which the Court of Appeal held that section 
3051, subdivision (h) violates equal protection principles by 
excluding youthful offenders convicted and sentenced for 
aggravated sex crimes under the One Strike law (Pen. Code 
§ 667.61) from youth offender parole consideration. 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
34 
25 years.  (See Pen. Code, § 190, subd. (a); id., §§ 190.1–190.5.)  
Penal Code section 190.2 (section 190.2) lists special 
circumstances that, under California law, mark a first degree 
murder particularly egregious and thus render the perpetrator 
eligible for the death penalty, consistent with Eighth 
Amendment requirements.  (People v. Bacigalupo (1993) 6 
Cal.4th 457, 467–468 [the “special circumstances” statute 
performs the constitutionally required function of “ ‘narrowing’ ” 
the “class of murderers eligible for the death penalty”].)  If a 
defendant is convicted of first degree murder with a special 
circumstance under section 190.2, there are only two possible 
sentences:  death or life without the possibility of parole.  (Id., 
subd. (a).) 
 
To understand the function of special circumstances in 
California’s capital sentencing law is to understand why Hardin 
faces a particularly difficult task in establishing that the 
Legislature’s decision to exclude offenders convicted of special 
circumstance murder from the youth offender parole system is 
“so devoid of even minimal rationality that it is unconstitutional 
as a matter of equal protection.”  (Chatman, supra, 4 Cal.5th at 
p. 289.)  The core of Hardin’s argument is that the Legislature 
could not rationally conclude that a conviction for special 
circumstance murder is a reliable indication of the seriousness 
of an offense or the culpability of the offender, such that it could 
rationally decide to exclude the offender from receiving the 
youth offender parole consideration to which other young adults 
are statutorily entitled.  In making this argument, Hardin does 
not focus on any single special circumstance or any particular 
factual scenarios; his argument is a categorical one, aimed at 
special circumstance murder in general.  This argument about 
the relative insignificance of special circumstance murder, as a 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
35 
category, is inconsistent with what are by now legions of 
decisions holding that special circumstance murder is 
sufficiently serious and morally culpable as to justify imposing 
the most severe sanctions available under the law, up to and 
including death. 
 
In the Eighth Amendment context, this court has 
consistently rejected arguments that section 190.2’s potential 
coverage is too broad to perform its constitutionally required 
function of identifying those convicted of murders whose crimes 
are sufficiently egregious to warrant the law’s most severe 
penalty.6  We have explained why various challenged provisions 
of section 190.2 adequately separate the most egregious first 
degree murders — those deserving of the most severe 
punishment available — from the rest.  (See, e.g., People v. 
Anderson (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1104, 1147 [“[B]y making the felony 
murderer but not the simple murderer death-eligible, a death 
penalty law furnishes the ‘meaningful basis [required by the 
Eighth Amendment] for distinguishing the few cases in which 
[the death penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it 
is not’ ”].) 
 
Here, for example, Hardin was convicted of murdering his 
victim in the course of robbing her.  We have explained why the 
 
6 
See, e.g., People v. Wilson (2023) 14 Cal.5th 839, 865–866; 
People v. Thomas (2023) 14 Cal.5th 327, 408; People v. Ramirez 
(2022) 13 Cal.5th 997, 1160; People v. Parker (2022) 13 Cal.5th 
1, 89; People v. Wright (2021) 12 Cal.5th 419, 455–456; People v. 
Scully (2021) 11 Cal.5th 542, 610; People v. Schultz (2020) 10 
Cal.5th 623, 682; People v. Frederickson (2020) 8 Cal.5th 963, 
1026; People v. Capers (2019) 7 Cal.5th 989, 1012–1013; People 
v. Brooks (2017) 3 Cal.5th 1, 114–115; People v. Johnson (2016) 
62 Cal.4th 600, 654–655. 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
36 
law treats robbery-murder as more culpable than simple 
murder.  The special circumstance is limited to those defendants 
who commit “a ‘willful, deliberate and premeditated’ murder 
‘during the commission’ of a robbery or other listed felony” 
rather than “when the defendant’s intent is not to steal but to 
kill and the robbery is merely incidental to the murder.”  (People 
v. Green (1980) 27 Cal.3d 1, 61.)  The law treats as particularly 
egregious a murder “in cold blood in order to advance an 
independent felonious purpose, e.g., who carried out an 
execution-style slaying of the victim of or witness to a holdup, a 
kidnaping, or a rape.”  (Ibid.)  “[T]he purpose of this special 
circumstance is to make eligible for the most severe punishment 
those defendants who escalate a serious felony into a murder, 
thereby attempting to deter such escalation.”  (People v. Mora 
and Rangel (2018) 5 Cal.5th 442, 520 (conc. & dis. opn. of Liu, 
J.).)   
 
Given this body of case law, it is difficult to see how the 
Legislature that enacted section 3051 could have acted 
irrationally in singling out special circumstance murder as a 
particularly culpable offense.  In concluding otherwise, the 
Court of Appeal in this case pointed to a law review article’s 
finding that, because of the expansion of the special 
circumstances over the years, at least one special circumstance 
could be alleged in many if not most first degree murder cases, 
“leaving the decision whether a life without parole sentence may 
be imposed to the discretion of local prosecutors, rather than a 
matter of statewide policy.”  (Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at 
p. 290; id. at p. 290, fn. 11, citing Com. on Revision of the Pen. 
Code, supra, Annual Report and Recommendations, p. 51, in 
turn citing Baldus et al., Furman at 45: Constitutional 
Challenges from California’s Failure to (Again) Narrow Death 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
37 
Eligibility, supra, 16 J. Empirical Legal Studies at pp. 713–714 
(Baldus study).)  Hardin now invokes the same article in support 
of his challenge to section 3051’s disparate treatment of 
individuals sentenced for special circumstance murder. 
 
Hardin’s argument is not that prosecutorial discretion 
itself offends equal protection.  (See People v. Keenan (1988) 46 
Cal.3d 478, 505, 506 [rejecting the argument that “prosecutorial 
discretion to select those eligible cases in which the death 
penalty will actually be sought” in and of itself “offend[s] 
principles of equal protection,” and explaining that “[m]any 
circumstances may affect the litigation of a case chargeable 
under the death penalty law.  These include factual nuances, 
strength of evidence, and, in particular, the broad discretion to 
show leniency”]; see also United States v. Batchelder (1979) 442 
U.S. 114, 125 [rejecting an equal protection challenge to “the 
discretion a prosecutor exercises when deciding whether to 
charge under one of two statutes”].)  Nor does he bring or 
develop a claim that prosecutorial discretion has been exercised 
in an arbitrary or invidious manner.  Rather, in light of the 
findings of the cited law review article, Hardin “challenges the 
Legislature’s ability to rely on a distinction between two 
groups — youthful offenders convicted of special circumstance 
murders and youthful offenders convicted of first degree 
murders — that collapses on further scrutiny.”   
 
We have previously considered a similar argument raised 
in the Eighth Amendment context.  In People v. Frye (1998) 18 
Cal.4th 894, 1028–1029 (Frye), a capital defendant relied on “a 
statistical analysis based on an examination of published 
appeals from murder convictions for the years 1988–1992” that 
showed “virtually all first degree murders are death eligible.”  
The defendant in that case attributed this result to “the broad 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
38 
interpretation of the lying-in-wait special circumstance and the 
expansive sweep of the felony-murder special circumstance.”  
(Id. at p. 1029.)  We rejected the argument, citing case law 
upholding the validity of both the lying-in-wait special 
circumstance and the felony-murder special circumstance in 
cases in which the defendant did not harbor an intent to kill but 
was instead a major participant in a felony who acted with 
reckless indifference to human life.  (Ibid., citing, inter alia, 
People v. Morales (1989) 48 Cal.3d 527, 557–558 & People v. 
Marshall (1990) 50 Cal. 3d 907, 946.) 
 
Our treatment of the issue in Frye was admittedly terse, 
and it relied on a different study than the one on which Hardin 
now relies.  But based on the arguments and evidence that have 
been presented to us here, we have no adequate basis to fault 
the Legislature for distinguishing, as a categorical matter, 
between a conviction for special circumstance murder and a 
conviction for a different homicide offense, as the law has long 
done. 
 
At the outset, we note that the Baldus study on which 
Hardin relies is not part of the record in this case, having been 
first raised not by the parties but by the Court of Appeal in its 
opinion.  (See Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 290.)  The 
study’s findings were not litigated in the trial court, so they have 
never been the subject of any sort of adversarial testing that 
would afford us insight into either the methodology employed or 
the ultimate accuracy or significance of the results.  To strike 
down an act of the Legislature as irrational based on a set of 
untested empirical findings would be antithetical to multiple 
settled principles of judicial review.  
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
39 
 
Even if we were to take the study’s findings at face value, 
however, they do not support Hardin’s claim that it is, as a 
categorical matter, irrational to treat individuals convicted of 
first degree special circumstance murder differently from 
individuals convicted of first degree murder without special 
circumstances.  The study neither says nor suggests that 
California’s special circumstance law is categorically invalid.  
Rather, as the Court of Appeal noted in its opinion, the study 
appears to suggest that certain special circumstances, added 
through various amendments after the initial enactment of 
section 190.2, have led to the results found in the study.7  (See 
Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 290.)  But Hardin makes no 
challenge specific to any particular special circumstance or 
special circumstances added or changed by postenactment 
 
7  
As Justice Liu notes, the Baldus study also reports that 
robbery-murder is factually present in a majority of special 
circumstance murder cases.  (Dis. opn. of Liu, J., post, at p. 38.)  
But standing alone, that finding has no clear relevance; a special 
circumstance is not legally invalid simply because it may be the 
most frequently recurring form of special circumstance murder. 
 
Justice Liu also invokes a different study, cited in the 
Baldus study but not raised by either party to this case, in 
support of the view that “ ‘the felony murder special 
circumstances alone defeat any possibility of genuine 
narrowing.’ ”  (Dis. opn. of Liu, J., post, at p. 38.)  Particularly 
without any adversarial testing or argument concerning the 
relationship between this limited set of empirical findings and 
the Eighth Amendment’s narrowing requirement, we have no 
adequate basis for drawing this sweeping conclusion, which 
would call into question a substantial body of precedent of both 
this court and of the United States Supreme Court.  (See Pulley 
v. Harris (1984) 465 U.S. 37, 51, fn. 13, 53 [upholding the 1978 
version of the special circumstance murder statute]; Frye, supra, 
18 Cal.4th at pp. 1028–1029.) 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
40 
amendments.  (The special circumstance finding at issue in 
Hardin’s own case is based on a provision of the law that dates 
back to the initial enactment of section 190.2.  (See Stats. 1973, 
ch. 719, § 5, pp. 1299–1300.))  While we do not foreclose the 
possibility of other challenges to the distinctions drawn by the 
special circumstances statute based on a more robust record or 
a more focused as-applied inquiry, Hardin has not carried his 
burden to demonstrate that legislative reliance on the special 
circumstance murder statute in section 3051, subdivision (h) is 
categorically irrational. 
 
Hardin next argues that an individual who commits 
special circumstance murder may not actually be more culpable 
than an offender who commits a string of other violent crimes.  
Agreeing with Hardin, the Court of Appeal raised for 
comparison two hypothetical offenders who would be eligible for 
a section 3051 parole hearing:  (1) “a 20 year old who shot and 
killed his victim one day, committed a robbery the next, and was 
sentenced to an indeterminate term of 50 years to life”; and 
(2) an individual “who committed multiple violent crimes . . . 
and received a parole-eligible indeterminate life term that far 
exceeded his or her life expectancy.”  (Hardin, supra, 84 
Cal.App.5th at p. 289.)  In the court’s view, these crimes “cannot 
rationally” be considered less severe than “[t]he crime of a 20-
year-old offender who shot and killed his victim while 
attempting to commit robbery and was sentenced to life without 
parole.”  (Ibid.)  Yet section 3051 would deny a parole hearing to 
that offender.  The court concluded that “[b]y defining the youth 
parole eligible date in terms of a single ‘controlling offense,’ 
rather than by the offender’s aggregate sentence, the 
Legislature has eschewed any attempt to assess the offenders’ 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
41 
[sic] overall culpability, let alone his or her amenability to 
growth.”  (Hardin, at p. 289.) 
 
That view again rests on the assumption that the 
Legislature is required to evaluate culpability in a particular 
way — a way that would, essentially, regard special 
circumstance murder as similar in culpability to a string of other 
violent crimes that leads to technically parole-eligible sentences.  
But the Legislature that enacted section 3051 was not obligated 
to see things this way.  Indeed, the law in general does not see 
things this way:  In the criminal law, there is no violent crime 
or set of violent crimes considered more serious, or that trigger 
more severe punishment, than special circumstance murder.  
We thus cannot say that the decision to deny a parole hearing to 
an offender convicted of special circumstance murder is 
irrational, even if it is possible that in certain cases some might 
consider an individual offender convicted of multiple violent 
crimes more culpable, in a holistic sense, than an individual 
convicted of special circumstance murder.  (Turnage, supra, 55 
Cal.4th at pp. 77–78 [“When conducting rational basis review 
. . . [a] plausible reason for distinguishing between [two groups 
of individuals] need not exist in every scenario in which the 
statutes might apply”].) 
 
Hardin notes that we have described an aggregate 
sentence that fixes parole eligibility outside of an offender’s life 
expectancy as the “functional equivalent of a life without parole 
sentence.”  (Caballero, supra, 55 Cal.4th at p. 268.)  But we have 
employed that description in the context of identifying the 
category of juvenile offenders to whom the Eighth Amendment 
limitations on life without parole sentences apply; for that 
purpose, what matters is only whether the sentence, by its 
nature, forecloses any realistic chance for a juvenile offender to 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
42 
rejoin society.  (See People v. Contreras (2018) 4 Cal.5th 349, 
368.)  We have not held that a lengthy term-of-years sentence is 
necessarily equivalent to a life without parole sentence for all 
purposes.  Nor, more specifically, have we suggested that a set 
of crimes punishable by a lengthy term-of-years sentence is 
necessarily more culpable, or equivalent in culpability, to a 
single crime for which the law prescribes a sentence of life 
without parole.  It was not irrational for the Legislature to 
exclude from youth offender parole eligibility those young adults 
who have committed special circumstance murder, an offense 
deemed sufficiently culpable that it merits society’s most 
stringent sanctions. 
V. 
 
In holding that Hardin has not demonstrated that the 
exclusion of offenders who are serving sentences of life in prison 
without the possibility of parole for a crime committed after the 
age of 18 from youth offender parole eligibility is irrational, we 
pass no judgment on the validity of any of the other exclusions 
set forth in section 3051, subdivision (h).  Nor do we resolve here 
the constitutionality of section 3051, subdivision (h) as it might 
arise in other as-applied challenges based on particular special 
circumstances or the factual circumstances of individual cases. 
 
We emphasize, finally, that the question before us 
concerns only the constitutional permissibility of the lines the 
Legislature has drawn.  It is not for us to pass judgment on the 
wisdom or desirability of its policy choices.  (Chatman, supra, 4 
Cal.5th at p. 297.)  Recognizing this, every published Court of 
Appeal decision other than the decision in this case has upheld 
the life without parole exclusion against equal protection 
challenge.  At the same time, several opinions have taken the 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
43 
additional step of calling on the Legislature to give further 
careful consideration to the issue.  (See, e.g., In re Murray (2021) 
68 Cal.App.5th 456, 464; People v. Morales, supra, 67 
Cal.App.5th at p. 349; People v. Jackson, supra, 61 Cal.App.5th 
at p. 202 (conc. stmt. of Liu, J.) review den. June 9, 2021, 
S267812; id. at pp. 201–202 (conc. opn. of Dato, J.); People v. 
Acosta, supra, 60 Cal.App.5th at p. 781; People v. Montelongo 
(2020) 55 Cal.App.5th 1016, 1041a (conc. stmt. of Liu, J.) review 
den. Jan. 27, 2021, S265597; id. at pp. 1035–1036 (conc. opn. of 
Segal, J.); In re Jones (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 477, 486–487 (conc. 
opn. of Pollak, J.).)   
 
That so many judges across the state have taken this step 
reflects the significance of this issue.  Special circumstance 
murder is an unquestionably grave offense, one that exacts an 
unimaginable toll on the lives of victims and those the victims 
leave behind.  But we also know that young people — even 
young people who have committed grave offenses — are capable 
of significant, sometimes transformative, change over the course 
of their lifetimes.  To extinguish any hope of release, particularly 
for an individual just past the cusp of adulthood, is a form of 
retribution that exacts its own price — one borne not just by the 
individuals 
involved, 
but 
by 
their 
families, 
by 
their 
communities, and by society as a whole.8   
 
8  
In addition to pointing to neuroscience research showing 
that all youthful offenders, irrespective of their offense, bear the 
mitigating attributes of adolescent cognitive development and 
are capable of reform, various amici curiae also caution against 
legislative reliance on the special circumstance law given the 
geographic, temporal, and racial disparities in its application.  
Justice Evans’s dissent, too, argues that the exclusion of 
 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
44 
 
We acknowledge our dissenting colleagues’ view that, in 
light of these overarching concerns, the Legislature should have 
made a different choice.  But for us to hold that the Legislature 
was constitutionally compelled to do so would require us to set 
aside multiple settled rules of constitutional adjudication.  As 
this court has repeatedly explained, the purpose of these rules 
is to ensure that courts act as courts, and allow for the 
 
offenders sentenced to life without parole perpetuates racial 
disparities, and that this bias “should inform this court’s mode 
of deference.”  (Dis. opn. of Evans, J., post, at p. 2.)  Hardin 
himself, however, has never argued that heightened scrutiny 
should apply to the facially neutral section 3051, subdivision (h), 
nor has he brought a constitutional claim based on the unequal 
or invidious enforcement of the special circumstance law.  We do 
not here address how claims concerning racial disparities might 
be raised or addressed in a different case, whether under the 
Equal Protection Clause or under the California Racial Justice 
Act of 2020 (Pen. Code, § 745). 
 
Some amici curiae on the other side of the issue argue that, 
if we were to find an equal protection violation in section 3051, 
subdivision (h), the only possible remedy would be to deny youth 
offender parole hearings to all young adult offenders; we could 
not instead order that treatment be equalized by granting youth 
offender parole hearings to young adults convicted of special 
circumstance murder.  These amici curiae argue that because 
the current version of section 190.2 was enacted by voter 
initiative (Prop. 7, as approved by voters, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 7, 
1978) § 6), extending parole eligibility to youthful offenders 
sentenced to special circumstance murder would constitute an 
impermissible amendment by the Legislature.  In response, 
Hardin contends that the penalty scheme set forth in section 
190.2 was first enacted by the Legislature, so the Legislature 
remains free to amend the penalties available for special 
circumstance murder.  We have no occasion to reach this issue, 
since Hardin has not established that section 3051’s exclusion of 
young adult offenders sentenced to life without parole violates 
equal protection. 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
45 
development of policy through the democratic process without 
putting the Legislature to unwarranted all-or-nothing choices.  
“While this court will not condone unconstitutional variances in 
the statutory consequences of our criminal laws,” rational basis 
review requires us to extend substantial respect to the 
Legislature’s judgments, for “ ‘ “ ‘[o]nly by faithful adherence to 
this guiding principle of judicial review of legislation is it 
possible to preserve to the legislative branch its rightful 
independence and its ability to function.’ ” ’ ”  (Johnson, supra, 
60 Cal.4th at p. 889.) 
 
Our legislative bodies may continue to consider the issue 
and how to balance concerns about the severity of certain crimes 
with the overarching concern that prompted enactment of the 
youth offender parole hearing system and its eventual 
expansion to young adult offenders — that is, the recognition of 
the potential of young persons for growth and change.  We are, 
however, mindful that the issue in this case arises in the first 
instance because the Legislature chose to expand opportunities 
for early parole consideration to many categories of young adult 
offenders, even though it was under no constitutional 
compulsion to do so.  We are also mindful that the legislative 
branch is entitled to proceed incrementally, so long as it 
proceeds rationally, in “walking [the] tightrope” of the political 
process.  (Kasler v. Lockyer (2000) 23 Cal.4th 472, 487.)  Our 
task is limited to determining whether Hardin has shown that 
the Legislature’s decision to expand youth offender parole 
hearings to most young adult offenders, while excluding Hardin 
and others similarly situated, violates equal protection under a 
rational basis standard.  For reasons explained above, we cannot 
so conclude. 
 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
46 
VI. 
 
We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
              KRUGER, J. 
 
We Concur: 
GUERRERO, C. J. 
CORRIGAN, J. 
GROBAN, J. 
JENKINS, J. 
 
1 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
S277487 
 
Dissenting Opinion by Justice Liu 
 
In a series of statutes over the past decade, the Legislature 
has established a parole eligibility process that provides young 
people who have committed serious crimes “the opportunity to 
obtain release when he or she has shown that he or she has been 
rehabilitated and gained maturity.”  (Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 1.)  
Although the initial version of the parole scheme applied to 
persons serving sentences for crimes committed before age 18, 
the Legislature soon expanded eligibility by increasing the age 
cutoff, first to 23 and then to 26.  In these enactments, the 
Legislature repeatedly recognized that “youthfulness both 
lessens a juvenile’s moral culpability and enhances the prospect 
that, as a youth matures into an adult and neurological 
development occurs, these individuals can become contributing 
members of society” (Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 1), and that brain 
development affecting judgment and decisionmaking “continues 
beyond adolescence and into the mid-20’s” (maj. opn., ante, at 
p.13 [citing legislative history]). 
Parole eligibility is now available to young adult offenders 
serving sentences for crimes committed before age 26, but with 
exceptions.  (Pen. Code, § 3051; undesignated citations are to 
the Penal Code.)  In 1989, at age 25, appellant Tony Hardin 
killed his elderly neighbor in the course of robbing her, and he 
was convicted of special-circumstance murder and sentenced to 
life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP).  The 
parole eligibility scheme from its inception has excluded young 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
2 
offenders sentenced to LWOP.  That exclusion has been lifted 
for juvenile offenders (§ 3051, subd. (b)(4)), but it still applies to 
individuals like Hardin who committed their crimes between 
the ages of 18 and 25 (id., subd. (h)), even though it is 
undisputed that the Legislature’s concerns about youth 
offenders’ diminished culpability and capacity for rehabilitation 
are not “crime-specific.”  (Miller v. Alabama (2012) 567 U.S. 460, 
473 (Miller); see maj. opn., ante, at p. 27.)  Hardin says this 
exclusion violates equal protection of the laws, and he is right. 
Today’s opinion rationalizes the exclusion by imputing to 
the Legislature a purpose — calibrating “culpability and the 
appropriate level of punishment for certain very serious crimes” 
(maj. opn., ante, at p. 26) — that is nowhere stated in the statute 
or its legislative history.  It then posits that special-
circumstance murder is generally distinguishable from simple 
first degree murder in terms of culpability (id. at pp. 33–42) 
despite strong evidence to the contrary.  According to the court, 
nothing more is required under rational basis review. 
Although I agree that rational basis review applies to 
Hardin’s claim, I disagree with how the court has applied it here.  
Today’s opinion ignores the considerable variation and nuance 
in our case law applying rational basis review and undertakes 
the sort of lax analysis that has become typical “ ‘[i]n areas of 
social and economic policy.’ ”  (Warden v. State Bar (1999) 21 
Cal.4th 628, 644 (Warden).)  But the issue in this case is a far 
cry from, say, whether the State Bar may exempt retired judges 
from continuing education requirements applicable to other 
licensed attorneys.  (Id. at p. 633.)  Hardin, who is Black, is 
challenging a law that spells the difference between dying in 
prison and having a chance to earn freedom.  The law targets a 
class of offenders who are overwhelmingly Black or Hispanic, 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
3 
and whose crimes — no less than the crimes of other youth 
offenders — reflect the “transient rashness, proclivity for risk, 
and inability to assess consequences” that are characteristic of 
young minds still undergoing neurological development.  
(Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at p. 472.)  In light of today’s decision, 
nearly 3,000 inmates continue to be denied any chance to 
demonstrate — as no doubt many could — that as mature adults 
they are more than the worst thing they ever did in their youth. 
We have applied rational basis review more rigorously in 
cases with lower stakes.  Rational basis review “require[s] the 
court to conduct ‘a serious and genuine judicial inquiry into the 
correspondence between the classification and the legislative 
goals.’ ”  (Newland v. Board of Governors (1977) 19 Cal.3d 705, 
711 (Newland).)  Here, such inquiry reveals that the exclusion 
of young offenders convicted of special-circumstance murder is 
irrational when measured against the Legislature’s stated 
purpose for establishing and expanding youth offender parole 
eligibility.  And even if we were to impute a purpose of excluding 
young offenders who have committed the most serious crimes, 
the exclusion of those convicted of special-circumstance murder 
does not withstand scrutiny.  That is because, as the Court of 
Appeal found, they are not meaningfully distinguishable from 
young offenders convicted of simple first degree murder, a group 
that is parole eligible under the statute. 
Today’s opinion concludes by echoing judges throughout 
the state who have urged the Legislature to reconsider the 
statute.  (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 42–43.)  One can hope the 
Legislature will take up the invitation, but that is no salve for 
what should have happened here.  It is indeed imperative that 
“courts act as courts” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 45), and in our 
system of government, courts are the ultimate guarantor of 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
4 
constitutional rights against arbitrariness or excesses of 
majoritarian rule.  Although courts owe deference to the 
democratic process, deference is not abdication.  Upon a serious 
and genuine judicial inquiry, it is evident that the exclusion of 
persons convicted of special-circumstance murder from youth 
offender parole eligibility does not meet the basic test of 
rationality.  I respectfully dissent. 
I. 
While I agree that rational basis review is the appropriate 
equal protection standard in this case, today’s opinion largely 
ignores the way this standard has been articulated and applied 
in our case law.  One feature that distinguishes our equal 
protection doctrine from its federal counterpart is that the 
standards of review under our doctrine are limited to two:  
rational basis review and strict scrutiny.  (See In re Marriage 
Cases (2008) 43 Cal.4th 757, 832.)  Unlike the federal courts, we 
have declined to adopt intermediate scrutiny as a third standard 
of review.  (See Hawkins v. Superior Court (1978) 22 Cal.3d 584, 
595–603 (conc. opn. of Mosk, J.); id. at pp. 607–610 (conc. opn. 
of Bird, C. J.).)  This means that rational basis review, in our 
doctrine, covers a wide range of cases and must be applied with 
nuance and sensitivity if we are to avoid the “rigidity of [a] two-
tiered framework” that “applies either a standard that is 
virtually always met [rational basis] or one that is almost never 
satisfied [strict scrutiny].”  (Id. at p. 598 (conc. opn. of Mosk, J.).)  
In the pages that follow, I discuss the rational basis standard in 
depth.  I regret the length of this discussion, but patient readers 
will understand why careful attention to our case law is 
essential to proper resolution of Hardin’s equal protection claim. 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
5 
A. 
In Brown v. Merlo (1973) 8 Cal.3d 855 (Brown), we applied 
rational basis review and struck down an automobile guest 
statute that “deprive[d] an injured automobile guest of any 
recovery for the careless driving of his host unless the injury 
results from the driver’s willful misconduct or intoxication.”  (Id. 
at pp. 858–859, citing Veh. Code, former § 17158.)  Our opinion 
examined the two rationales traditionally offered for the 
statute — protecting hospitality and preventing collusive 
lawsuits — and rejected both with extensive analysis.  As to 
protecting 
hospitality, 
the 
court 
found 
this 
rationale 
underinclusive in that it “provides no explanation for the 
statute’s differential treatment of automobile guests as 
distinguished from other guests, or indeed, all other recipients 
of hospitality.”  (Brown, at p. 864.)  Further, we said that any 
interest in protecting drivers from claims by “ungrateful” guests 
had been undermined by the advent of widespread liability 
insurance.  (Id. at p. 868; see id. at p. 869 [“a classification which 
once was rational because of a given set of circumstances may 
lose its rationality if the relevant factual premise is totally 
altered”].)  As to preventing collusive lawsuits, the court 
explained that “it is unreasonable to eliminate causes of action 
of an entire class of persons simply because some undefined 
portion of the designated class may file fraudulent lawsuits.”  
(Id. at p. 875.)  “[B]y broadly prohibiting all automobile guests 
from instituting causes of action for negligence because a small 
segment of that class may file collusive suits, the guest statute 
presents a classic case of an impermissibly overinclusive 
classification scheme . . . .”  (Id. at p. 876.) 
The court in Brown did not rationalize the statute’s 
underinclusivity by saying that a legislature “may take one step 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
6 
at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem which 
seems most acute to the legislative mind.”  (Williamson v. Lee 
Optical of Oklahoma, Inc. (1955) 348 U.S. 483, 489 (Lee 
Optical).) 
 
Nor 
did 
Brown 
rationalize 
the 
statute’s 
overinclusivity by saying that a classification does not fail 
rational basis review “simply because [it] ‘is not made with 
mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some 
inequality,’ ” or that practical problems of government “ ‘may 
justify, if they do not require, rough accommodations — illogical, 
it may be, and unscientific.’ ”  (Dandridge v. Williams (1970) 397 
U.S. 471, 485.)  In fact, Brown began its discussion of the 
rational basis standard by observing that a classification “ ‘must 
rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and 
substantial relation to the object of the legislation,’ ”  (Brown, 
supra, 8 Cal.3d at p. 681, italics omitted, quoting Reed v. Reed 
(1971) 404 U.S. 71, 76 (Reed).)  Although Reed presaged the 
development of intermediate scrutiny under federal law (see 
Craig v. Boren (1976) 429 U.S. 190, 197–199, 204; Frontiero v. 
Richardson (1973) 411 U.S. 677, 682–684, 690–691 (plur. opn.)), 
Brown assimilated it into our explication of rational basis 
review. 
The next year, this court in D’Amico v. Board of Medical 
Examiners (1974) 11 Cal.3d 1 (D’Amico) invalidated statutes 
that barred persons with osteopathic training (holders of O.D. 
degrees) from obtaining a physician’s license available to 
persons with allopathic training (holders of M.D. degrees).  (Id. 
at p. 23.)  We began by explaining that rational basis review, not 
strict scrutiny, applies to occupational licensing laws.  (Id. at 
pp. 16–18.)  We then noted the Attorney General’s admissions 
“(1) that osteopathy, like allopathy, is a complete school of 
medicine and surgery whose practitioners successfully engage 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
7 
in the full range of activities commonly thought of as 
constituting medical science . . . , and (2) that there exists in the 
state examining and licensing boards the technical capacity to 
screen osteopathic applicants for licensure, as allopathic 
applicants are now screened, so as to insure that the people of 
the state will be protected from incompetent and unqualified 
practitioners.”  (Id. at p. 23.)  “This showing,” we said, 
“demonstrates beyond peradventure of a doubt that there exists 
no rational relationship between the protection of the public 
health and the exclusion from licensure of all medical 
practitioners who . . . hold D.O. rather than M.D. degrees.”  
(Ibid.)  We further said that in light of the admissions above, the 
same result would obtain even if “evidence might show 
differences of emphasis and quality between osteopathic 
training and allopathic training.”  (Id. at p. 24.)  We did not posit 
that the Legislature could proceed “one step at a time” in 
protecting public health (Lee Optical, supra, 348 U.S. at p. 489) 
or that the additional cost of screening osteopathic applicants 
for licensure could justify the exclusion (cf. Reed, supra, 404 U.S. 
at p. 76 [rejecting administrative efficiency as a valid rationale 
for an otherwise “arbitrary legislative choice”]). 
Three years later, in Newland, supra, 19 Cal.3d 705, we 
applied rational basis review and invalidated a statute that 
barred persons with a misdemeanor conviction, but not persons 
with a felony conviction, from eligibility for a teaching 
credential.  (Id. at p. 707.)  The differential treatment turned on 
the fact that one of the statutory eligibility requirements was a 
certificate of rehabilitation, which was available to felons but 
not misdemeanants.  (Ibid.)  We speculated that the certificate 
requirement “may simply be a case of legislative oversight — a 
failure to realize that this requirement would block any relief to 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
8 
a misdemeanant.”  (Id. at p. 712.)  But we did not rest our 
reasoning on that ground.  Instead, we said “our inquiry must 
begin with an identification of the purpose of [the statute] so 
that we may determine whether the statutory classification . . . 
rationally relates to that purpose.”  (Id. at p. 711.)  We 
determined that the credentialing statute’s purpose was “to 
protect the students, faculty and others who might be harmed 
by the employment of an unfit teacher.”  (Id. at pp. 711–712.)  
We then explained:  “This statutory discrimination against 
misdemeanants can claim no rational relationship to the 
protective purpose of [the statute]. . . .  The Legislature could 
not possibly or sensibly have concluded that misdemeanants, as 
opposed to felons, constitute a class of particularly incorrigible 
offenders who are beyond hope of rehabilitation.”  (Id. at p. 712.) 
In applying rational basis review, Newland hewed to the 
statute’s clear purpose and evaluated the classification against 
that purpose.  We did not posit any competing purposes, though 
it would have been easy to do so:  The state could have had an 
interest in minimizing the costs associated with determining 
which persons with criminal history have been rehabilitated 
and are thus fit to be a teacher.  Whereas an existing 
mechanism (a certificate of rehabilitation) simplified that 
determination for persons with a felony conviction, no such 
mechanism existed for persons with a misdemeanor conviction, 
a far larger group.  Educational institutions, if they wished to 
screen such applicants, would have needed to incur the burden 
of conducting their own fitness hearings, as Newland 
acknowledged.  (Newland, supra, 19 Cal.3d at p. 714, fn. 11.)  
Had we taken the view that “ ‘[i]f a plausible basis exists for the 
disparity, courts may not second-guess its “ ‘wisdom, fairness, or 
logic’ ” ’ ” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 23), Newland would have come 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
9 
out the other way.  But we did not deploy such reasoning.  After 
canvassing various formulations of the rational basis standard, 
we said that “[a]ll of the formulas require the court to conduct ‘a 
serious and genuine judicial inquiry into the correspondence 
between the classification and the legislative goals’ ” and that 
such inquiry demonstrated the unconstitutionality of the 
classification at issue.  (Newland, at p. 711, italics added.) 
The following year, we applied the inquiry as stated in 
Newland to invalidate a Vehicle Code provision barring 
passengers who own the car in which they were injured from 
suing the negligent driver:  “[H]aving conducted a ‘serious and 
genuine judicial inquiry into the correspondence between the 
[statutory] classification and the legislative goals’ [citation to 
Newland], we are convinced that the disparate treatment 
accorded by the statute is not rationally related to a realistically 
conceivable legislative purpose.”  (Cooper v. Bray (1978) 21 
Cal.3d 841, 855 (Cooper).)  From “the origin and legislative 
history of the provision,” we found it “rather clear” that “the 
provision was not intended to impose special burdens on owner-
passengers but rather proposed to place such owner-passengers 
on an equal plane with most other injured automobile 
passengers” at a time when the Vehicle Code also barred 
recovery by nonpaying automobile guests.  (Id. at p. 848.)  
Because the court in Brown had since invalidated the 
automobile guest statute, the bar on recovery by owner-
passengers no longer “ ‘further[ed] the legislative purpose of 
according owner-passengers the same treatment as such guests, 
but rather defeat[ed] that purpose by singling out owner-
passengers for differential treatment from all other automobile 
accident victims.’ ”  (Id. at p. 851.) 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
10 
In evaluating the classification against the statute’s 
actual purpose, we declined to impute other purposes to the 
Legislature, such as an “interest in promoting automobile safety 
by encouraging the careful selection and supervision of 
permissive drivers by car owners.”  (Cooper, supra, 21 Cal.3d at 
p. 851.)  We found the statute overinclusive with regard to such 
an interest because it “bar[red] recovery by all owner-
passengers, including the most careful owners who selected the 
most cautious drivers and who scrupulously supervised the 
driving.”  (Id. at p. 852.)  We also explained that if the 
Legislature had intended “to encourage care in the selection and 
supervision of drivers,” then the statutory exceptions allowing 
recovery by owner-passengers for injury caused by a driver’s 
intoxication or willful misconduct “obviously make[] no sense.”  
(Ibid.)  We were unmoved by the dissent’s argument that “the 
Legislature, pursuing the clearly legitimate goal of achieving a 
fair distribution of liability for damage caused by unreasonable 
conduct,” could have reasonably “weighed the conflicting 
interests of driver and owner and concluded that the driver 
should be protected, given the owner’s selection of, and 
supervision over, the driver,” even if this “reasoning was unwise, 
or . . . the purpose of the Legislature could have been better 
furthered by another means.”  (Id. at pp. 857–858 (dis. opn. of 
Richardson, J.).) 
Our approach in Cooper, Newland, and earlier cases was 
consonant with a contemporaneous high court case, United 
States Department of Agriculture v. Moreno (1973) 413 U.S. 528 
(Moreno), which invalidated a statute excluding households 
“containing an individual who is unrelated to any other member 
of the household” from food stamp eligibility.  (Id. at p. 529.)  
Applying rational basis review, the high court quoted the Food 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
11 
Stamp Act’s stated purpose “ ‘[t]o alleviate . . . hunger and 
malnutrition’ ” 
among 
“ ‘low-income 
households’ ” 
and 
concluded that “[t]he challenged statutory classification . . . is 
clearly irrelevant to the stated purposes of the Act.”  (Id. at 
pp. 533–534.)  The court then considered whether “Congress 
might rationally” have had an “interest in minimizing fraud in 
the administration of the food stamp program.”  (Id. at p. 535.)  
It rejected this rationale on the grounds that the statute already 
contained other antifraud provisions (id. at pp. 536–537) and 
that the exclusion of unrelated households “in practical 
operation” did not target “persons who are ‘likely to abuse the 
program’ ” (id. at p. 538).  The court did not posit that Congress 
could have desired a belt-and-suspenders approach to 
combating fraud.  Nor did it accept the generalization that 
limiting food stamps to related households “provides a 
guarantee . . . that the household exists for some purpose other 
than to collect federal food stamps” (id. at p. 546 (dis. opn. of 
Rehnquist, J.), citing evidence to the contrary (id. at pp. 537–
538 (maj. opn.)).  Like Cooper, Moreno evaluated the 
classification against the stated legislative purpose and declined 
to impute other purposes, and the high court did not defer to 
plausible yet unsubstantiated generalizations, even while 
acknowledging that rational basis review “does not require that 
every classification be drawn with precise ‘ “mathematical 
nicety.” ’ ”  (Moreno, at p. 538.) 
We continued to apply this mode of analysis in Hays v. 
Wood (1979) 25 Cal.3d 772 (Hays), where we invalidated a voter-
enacted disclosure law that required public officials who were 
lawyers or brokers to disclose any source of payments equal to 
or greater than $1,000, but which required filers with other 
business interests to disclose only sources of payments equal to 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
12 
or greater than $10,000.  (Id. at p. 795.)  We again applied 
Newland’s formulation of the rational basis inquiry (Hays, at 
p. 787) and focused on the legislative purpose stated in “the Act 
itself,” i.e., “insuring disclosure of income which may be 
materially affected by the official actions of the filing public 
official” (id. at p. 788).  We recognized that the potential for 
conflict of interest is a function of an official’s “actual profits” 
derived from business dealings (ibid.) and that providers of 
professional services have “substantially greater” profit margins 
than business entities that make or sell goods (id. at p. 789).  
But this distinction did not justify “special treatment” of lawyers 
and brokers as compared to other professionals with comparable 
profit margins.  (Ibid.)  We said this “ ‘underinclusiv[ity]’ ” could 
not be justified on the ground that “a legislative body . . . need 
not attack all phases [of a problem] at once.”  (Id. at p. 790.)  
“[W]hen the legislative body proposes to address an area of 
concern in less than comprehensive fashion by ‘striking the evil 
where it is felt most’ [citation], its decision as to where to ‘strike’ 
must have a rational basis in light of the legislative objectives.”  
(Id. at p. 791.) 
We then proceeded to reject four possible bases for 
distinguishing lawyers from “all others similarly situated in 
terms of profit margin.”  (Hays, supra, 25 Cal.3d at p. 792.)  It 
was argued that lawyers are more likely to have potential 
conflicts because they often represent private interests in 
dealings with government; we said other professionals may have 
a higher volume of clients, making potential conflicts more 
frequent.  (Id. at pp. 792–793.)  It was argued that “the unique 
nature” of the lawyer-client relationship, including “habits of 
loyalty,” make lawyers more prone to conflict; we said the 
professional relationships of physicians and psychotherapists 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
13 
are at least as “personal and intense.”  (Id. at p. 793.)  It was 
argued that “the customary practice of many lawyers of 
accepting retainers” can serve as “a unique device for 
channeling money in payment for public favors”; we said a 
“disguised payment for political favor” can occur “in any number 
of ways.”  (Id. at pp.793, 794.)  And it was argued that the public 
may perceive a lawyer, “ ‘more so than . . . persons in other 
professions,’ ” as promoting client interests when serving as a 
public official; we said this was a “curious assertion” that 
provided no basis for “significantly different standards of 
disclosure for members of different professions.”  (Id. at pp. 794, 
795.)  We thus rejected a series of unsubstantiated assertions en 
route to holding that the classification “fails to exhibit any fair 
and reasonable relationship to the stated legislative objectives.”  
(Id. at p. 795.) 
Another case in this line was United States Steel Corp. v. 
Public Utilities Commission (1981) 29 Cal.3d 603 (U.S. Steel), 
which involved a challenge to a Public Utilities Commission 
order exempting commodities carried by private vessels (as 
opposed to common carriers) from intrastate minimum shipping 
rates.  The effect of this order was to make foreign steel cheaper 
to transport compared to domestic steel.  (Id. at p. 607.)  We 
annulled the order on the ground that the Commission had 
adopted it without having satisfied its statutory duty to “assess 
the economic impact of its action,” including whether the 
exemption would drive shippers out of business and cost jobs.  
(Id. at p. 610.)  “To guide the commission in further proceedings” 
(ibid.), we went on to discuss the requirements of equal 
protection in this context.  We again quoted Newland’s 
formulation of the rational basis inquiry and observed that 
“[t]he aim of minimum rate regulation is to preclude destructive 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
14 
rate practices and to provide for movement at the lowest rates 
compatible with the maintenance of adequate transportation 
service.  [Citations.]  Rates below the minimum do not serve that 
aim absent some showing of a difference in cost in hauling 
private-vessel steel as compared with domestic steel, or of a 
difference regarding destructive rate practices.  There is no 
showing here.”  (U.S. Steel, at p. 612.)  A further argument for 
the exemption was that the “difficulty in determining whether 
imported steel has arrived via common carrier or private vessel” 
would burden “truckers in determining the appropriate rate as 
well as on the commission in enforcing minimum rates.”  (Id. at 
p. 613.)  We said this concern was plausible, but “the 
commission’s finding as to ‘difficulty’ seems inadequately 
supported by the record,” and the equal protection issue could 
not be settled “[w]ithout a more complete record.”  (Id. at p. 614.)  
In 
sum, 
we 
again 
declined 
to 
accept 
plausible 
yet 
unsubstantiated assertions under rational basis review. 
B. 
A few years after U.S. Steel, we decided a series of cases 
rejecting equal protection challenges to various provisions of the 
Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975 (MICRA).  
(See American Bank & Trust Co. v. Community Hospital (1984) 
36 Cal.3d 359, 370–374 (American Bank); Barme v. Wood (1984) 
37 Cal.3d 174, 181–182 (Barme); Roa v. Lodi Medical Group, 
Inc. (1985) 37 Cal.3d 920, 930–931 (Roa); Fein v. Permanente 
Medical Group (1985) 38 Cal.3d 137, 161–164 (Fein).)  Our 
language in those cases featured more deferential formulations 
of rational basis review.  (See, e.g., American Bank, at p. 371 
[“the equal protection clause does not prohibit a Legislature 
from implementing a reform measure ‘one step at a time’ 
[citation], or prevent it ‘from striking the evil where it is felt 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
15 
most’ ”]; id. at p. 374 [“the constitutionality of a measure under 
the equal protection clause does not depend on a court’s 
assessment of the empirical success or failure of the measure’s 
provisions”].)  But we observed that “our application of equal 
protection principles in [the MICRA cases] is not inconsistent 
with the principles enunciated in [Brown and Cooper] or like 
cases.  As Cooper explains, . . . what is required is that the court 
‘conduct “a serious and genuine judicial inquiry into the 
correspondence between the classification and the legislative 
goals.” ’  (21 Cal.3d at p. 848 [quoting Newland v. Board of 
Governors (1977) 19 Cal.3d 705, 711, italics added in Cooper].)  
We have conducted such an inquiry in all of these cases . . . .”  
(Fein, at p. 163.) 
Fein is illustrative.  The plaintiff argued that MICRA’s 
$250,000 cap on noneconomic damages violates equal protection 
because it “discriminates between medical malpractice victims 
and other tort victims” and because it “discriminates within the 
class of medical malpractice victims, denying a ‘complete’ 
recovery of damages only to those malpractice plaintiffs with 
noneconomic damages exceeding $250,000.”  (Fein, supra, 38 
Cal.3d at pp. 161–162.)  As to the first contention, we cited our 
earlier cases that had extensively examined the legislative 
history of MICRA showing that the Legislature, with ample 
basis, had targeted medical malpractice cases for reform 
because of “an insurance ‘crisis’ in that particular area.”  (Fein, 
at p. 162, citing American Bank, Barme, and Roa.)  As to the 
second contention, we said “the Legislature clearly had a 
reasonable basis” for seeking cost savings “only by limiting the 
recovery of noneconomic damage.”  (Fein, at p. 162.)  While 
acknowledging other plausible means of distributing cost 
savings across malpractice plaintiffs, we explained that the size 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
16 
and unpredictability of noneconomic damages awards rationally 
justified the Legislature’s approach.  (Id. at pp. 162–163.)  We 
noted that “the unpredictability of the size of large noneconomic 
damage awards” was “[o]ne of the problems identified in the 
legislative hearings” (id. at p. 163), and we cited legal 
scholarship and an American Bar Association report to show 
that the issue was one on which “reasonable persons can 
certainly disagree” (id. at p. 160; see id. at pp. 159–160 & 
fns. 16–17).  Fein did not rely on imputed legislative purposes or 
unsubstantiated assertions to uphold the challenged provision. 
A subsequent case, Warden, supra, 21 Cal.4th 628, marks 
perhaps our most deferential application of rational basis 
review.  We rejected an equal protection challenge to an 
exemption for retired judges, elected officials, and law professors 
from continuing education requirements that are generally 
applicable to practicing attorneys.  (Id. at p. 634.)  We said “it 
would not have been irrational to conclude that the attorneys in 
each of the exempted categories, as a general matter, are less 
likely than other attorneys to represent clients on a full-time 
basis, thus rendering the need for a continuing education 
requirement less vital,” and that “in view of their particular 
professional roles and experience, the attorneys in each of the 
exempt classes (again, as a general matter) are less likely than 
lawyers in general to need continuing education courses in order 
to be familiar with recent legal developments or to remain 
competent practitioners.”  (Id. at pp. 645–646.) 
The Court of Appeal had observed that there was “ ‘no 
support’ in the legislative history . . . to indicate that these were 
the actual explanations of the rationale or motivation for the 
adoption of the exemptions.”  (Warden, supra, 21 Cal.4th at 
pp. 649–650.)  Citing federal case law, we said that “when there 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
17 
is a reasonably conceivable justification for a classification, ‘[i]t 
is . . . “constitutionally irrelevant whether [the] reasoning in fact 
underlay the legislative decision.” ’ ”  (Id. at p. 650, quoting 
United States Railroad Retirement Board. v. Fritz (1980) 449 
U.S. 166, 179.)  We also said, citing federal case law, that “ ‘a 
legislative choice . . . may be based on rational speculation 
unsupported by evidence or empirical data’ ” (Warden, at p. 650, 
italics added, quoting Federal Communications Commission v. 
Beach Communications, Inc. (1993) 508 U.S. 307, 315 (Beach 
Communications) and that “ ‘reform may take one step at a 
time’ ” (Warden, at p. 645, quoting Lee Optical, supra, 348 U.S. 
at p. 489). 
As two dissenting Justices observed, Warden relied 
heavily on federal authority in elaborating a highly deferential 
rational basis test without grappling with the fact that whereas 
it is one of three levels of scrutiny in federal equal protection 
doctrine, our own case law “has not slavishly followed decisions 
of the federal high court” and has never adopted intermediate 
scrutiny.  (Warden, supra, 21 Cal.4th at pp. 652–653 (dis. opn. 
of Kennard, J.); id. at p. 661 (dis. opn. of Brown, J.) [“Our state 
equal protection jurisprudence grew out of a recognition of the 
inadequacy of federal standards.”].)  Justice Brown noted that 
our decision in Hays had “expressly rejected” Lee Optical in 
saying that “ ‘the legislative body, when it chooses to address a 
particular area of concern in less than comprehensive fashion by 
merely “striking the evil where it is felt most” [citation] may not 
do so wholly at its whim.’  [Citation.]  Rather ‘its decision as to 
where to “strike” must have a rational basis in light of the 
legislative objectives.’ ”  (Warden, at p. 664 (dis. opn. of Brown, 
J.), quoting Hays, supra, 25 Cal.3d at pp. 790, 791.)  “[O]ur state 
Constitution insists on greater precision . . . .  Rather than 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
18 
merely ‘rubberstamping’ the legislative categories at issue here, 
we should be engaging in ‘ “a serious and genuine judicial 
inquiry into the correspondence between the classification and 
the legislative goals” ’ (Newland v. Board of Governors, supra, 
19 Cal.3d at p. 711), and, more particularly, we should be asking 
whether the legislative classifications substantially advance the 
legislative purposes without being ‘grossly overinclusive’ or 
‘underinclusive.’  (Brown v. Merlo, supra, 8 Cal.3d at p. 877 & 
fn. 17.)”  (Warden, at pp. 664–665 (dis. opn. of Brown, J.).) 
Warden made clear that the standards it elaborated apply 
“ ‘[i]n areas of social and economic policy’ ” (Warden, supra, 21 
Cal.4th at p. 644, quoting Beach Communications, supra, 508 
U.S. at p. 313), and issues such as continuing legal education 
requirements or the definition of a “cable system” (Beach 
Communications, at pp. 310–311) are paradigmatic examples.  
Warden’s deferential language has seeped into our case law 
addressing equal protection challenges to criminal statutes, 
with no examination of how our doctrine has evolved differently 
from its federal counterpart.  (See People v. Turnage (2012) 55 
Cal.4th 62, 75, 79 (Turnage); People v. Johnson (2015) 60 Cal.4th 
871, 887 (Johnson); People v. Chatman (2018) 4 Cal.5th 277, 289 
(Chatman).)  But even in those cases, we have not actually 
employed the full extent of deference that Warden’s language 
contemplates. 
In Turnage, we upheld a statute allowing felony treatment 
of placing a false bomb without proof of causing sustained fear, 
even though a separate statute requires proof of sustained fear 
for felony treatment of placing a false weapon of mass 
destruction (WMD).  (Turnage, supra, 55 Cal.4th at pp. 67–68.)  
We said the differential treatment was rational because “[i]t is 
conceivable from a legislative perspective” that false WMDs, 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
19 
unlike false bombs, “would not necessarily be recognized or 
cause fear, even where it is detected and was intended to do so.”  
(Id. at p. 68.)  But this rationale was not merely “conceivable”; 
the history of the false WMD statute implied that the 
Legislature had actually considered it.  Extensively citing a 
Senate committee report, we observed that “[t]he new false 
WMD statute was said to be inspired by the false bomb statute” 
(id. at p. 79) and that “in acknowledging the similarity between 
the ‘wobbler’ provisions of [the false WMD statute] and [the false 
bomb statute], the Legislature implied that it was aware of the 
substance of the latter statute, that proof of sustained fear was 
not required in felony false bomb cases, and that both felonies 
nonetheless involved the same level of ‘violent’ fear. . . .  In other 
words, a showing of sustained fear for felonies under the false 
WMD statute was necessary to reflect the same level of violent 
fear that the Legislature assumed was present in false bomb 
cases . . . .”  (Id. at p. 80.)  “[T]he Senate Report implicitly shows 
a rational connection between the disparate role of sustained 
fear in the false bomb and false WMD statutes, and the purpose 
such disparity was apparently meant to serve.”  (Id. at pp. 79–
80.) 
In Johnson, we upheld a statutory scheme allowing 
discretionary sex offender registration for persons convicted of 
unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, while imposing 
mandatory registration for persons convicted of crimes involving 
other sexual acts with a minor, including nonforcible oral 
copulation.  (Johnson, supra, 60 Cal.4th at pp. 874–875.)  We 
said that “intercourse is unique in its potential to result in 
pregnancy and parenthood.  Given that unique potential, 
legislative concerns regarding teen pregnancy and the support 
of children conceived as a result of unlawful sexual intercourse 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
20 
provide more than just a plausible basis for” the disparate 
treatment.  (Id. at p. 875.)  This rationale was not hypothetical.  
We examined the history of the statute against unlawful sexual 
intercourse and observed that the Legislature, by separating 
this offense from the general rape statute, “sought to eliminate 
. . . the social stigma associated with the rape label so that 
offenders could more readily obtain employment and support 
children conceived as a result of such intercourse.  [Citations to 
legislative history.]  This history confirms that the potential for 
pregnancy and parenthood has, in fact, influenced legislative 
decisionmaking regarding unlawful intercourse with minors.”  
(Id. at p. 885; see ibid. [citing subsequent legislative concerns 
about teen pregnancy and birth rates resulting from unlawful 
sexual activity between adult males and teenage girls, and 
implications for public welfare and health care expenses].)  We 
said this actual legislative concern provided a rational basis for 
allowing trial courts not to order registration where it “might 
cause economic or other hardship to a child born to the minor 
victim and the adult offender,” while requiring registration for 
persons convicted of other unlawful sexual activity with minors.  
(Id. at p. 886.) 
Similarly, in Chatman, we upheld a statute barring 
former probationers but not former prisoners from eligibility for 
a certificate of rehabilitation in certain circumstances.  
(Chatman, supra, 4 Cal.5th at pp. 282–283.)  Our analysis 
focused on the state’s interest in avoiding the costs associated 
with extending certificates of rehabilitation to former 
probationers, a group much larger than former prisoners.  (Id. 
at pp. 291–292.)  Although we said the rationale for a legislative 
classification need not have been articulated by lawmakers and 
does not need to be empirically substantiated (id. at p. 289), in 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
21 
fact we observed that legislative history “provide[s] at least 
some indication that this cost concern figured in legislative 
deliberations” (id. at p. 292), and we went on to cite “data” that 
substantiated the cost concern (id. at p. 293).  In other words, 
Chatman addressed what appeared to be the actual rationale for 
the classification and found it had some empirical support.  (See 
also People v. Wilkinson (2004) 33 Cal.4th 821, 834, 839 
[legislative history showed rationale for statute allowing 
potentially harsher treatment of battery on a custodial officer 
without injury than such battery with injury].) 
C. 
In sum, this court’s articulation and application of rational 
basis review has not marched in lock step with federal authority.  
Our approach is deferential but far from toothless; our case law, 
though not entirely uniform, reveals several recurring themes:  
In conducting “ ‘a serious and genuine judicial inquiry into the 
correspondence between the classification and the legislative 
goals’ ” (Newland, supra, 19 Cal.3d at p. 711), we have focused 
on actual legislative purposes instead of imputing hypothetical 
ones, and we have looked for empirical support instead of relying 
on conjecture or unsubstantiated assertions.  Although we “do 
not 
require 
absolute 
precision 
in 
the 
designation 
of 
classifications,” we also “do not tolerate classifications which are 
so grossly overinclusive as to defy notions of fairness or 
reasonableness.”  (Brown, supra, 8 Cal.3d at p. 877.)  And while 
the Legislature may proceed incrementally, we have said it 
must do so rationally in light of the legislative objectives and 
“not . . . wholly at its whim.”  (Hays, supra, 25 Cal.3d at p. 790.) 
Today’s opinion ignores this case law and claims that I am 
offering “an argument for reconsidering rational basis review.”  
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
22 
(Maj. opn., ante, at p. 23, fn. 3.)  To the contrary, it is the court’s 
refusal to consider, not reconsider, our precedent that is the 
problem here.  The principles above have sturdy foundations in 
what our cases say and, perhaps more importantly, in what they 
actually do.  Although Warden took a more deferential approach, 
today’s opinion does not cite Warden for an obvious reason:  We 
are not dealing with a matter at all similar to who is or isn’t 
subject to continuing legal education requirements.  The case 
before us concerns which young offenders will be condemned to 
die in prison and which will have a meaningful chance to earn 
release.  Instead of measuring the challenged classification 
against the Legislature’s stated purpose in enacting the youth 
offender parole statute, today’s opinion upholds the exclusion of 
young offenders convicted of special circumstance murder by 
imputing a different purpose that is nowhere mentioned in the 
statute’s text or legislative history, and that even on its own 
terms does not provide a rational basis for treating the excluded 
group differently from young offenders convicted of first degree 
murder.  The court’s reasoning cannot sustain the result here. 
II. 
The provision at issue — section 3051, subdivision (h) — 
is part of the youth offender parole statute enacted by the 
Legislature in 2013.  I begin with some background on the 
statute and then explain its constitutional infirmity. 
A. 
The Legislature made clear the purpose of section 3051 in 
the statute itself.  Its opening provision, as originally enacted, 
says in full:  “The Legislature recognizes that youthfulness both 
lessens a juvenile’s moral culpability and enhances the prospect 
that, as a youth matures into an adult and neurological 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
23 
development occurs, these individuals can become contributing 
members of society.  The purpose of this act is to establish a 
parole eligibility mechanism that provides a person serving a 
sentence for crimes that he or she committed as a juvenile the 
opportunity to obtain release when he or she has shown that he 
or she has been rehabilitated and gained maturity, in 
accordance with the decision of the California Supreme Court in 
People v. Caballero (2012) 55 Cal.4th 262 and the decisions of 
the United States Supreme Court in Graham v. Florida (2010) 
560 U.S. 48 [(Graham)], and Miller v. Alabama (2012) [567 U.S. 
460].  Nothing in this act is intended to undermine the 
California Supreme Court’s holdings in In re Shaputis (2011) 53 
Cal.4th 192, In re Lawrence (2008) 44 Cal.4th 1181, and 
subsequent cases.  It is the intent of the Legislature to create a 
process by which growth and maturity of youthful offenders can 
be assessed and a meaningful opportunity for release 
established.”  (Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 1 [Sen. Bill No. 260].)  The 
only references to culpability in the statute are the Legislature’s 
recognition of the diminished culpability of youth (ibid.) and the 
mandate that any psychological evaluations or risk assessments 
used by the parole board “shall take into consideration the 
diminished culpability of youth as compared to that of adults” 
(§ 3051, subd. (f)(1)). 
Subsequently, in light of more “[r]ecent scientific evidence 
on adolescent and young adult development and neuroscience 
show[ing] that certain areas of the brain — particularly those 
affecting judgment and decision-making — do not fully develop 
until the early- to mid-20s” (Sen. Com. on Public Safety, Rep. on 
Sen. Bill No. 261 (2015–2016 Reg. Sess.) Apr. 28, 2015, p. 3), the 
Legislature amended the parole eligibility scheme — first, to 
include youth offenders who committed crimes before the age of 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
24 
23 (Stat. 2015, ch. 471, § 1, Sen. Bill No. 261 (2015–2016 Reg. 
Sess.) § 1), and then, to include offenders who committed crimes 
before age 26 (Stat. 2017, ch. 675, § 1, Assem. Bill No. 1308 
(2017–2018 Reg. Sess.) § 1).  A committee report on the latter 
bill states:  “The rationale, as expressed by the author and 
supporters of this bill, is that research shows that cognitive 
brain development continues into the early 20s or later.  The 
parts of the brain that are still developing during this process 
affect judgment and decision-making, and are highly relevant to 
criminal behavior and culpability.  (See Johnson, et al., 
Adolescent Maturity and the Brain: The Promise and Pitfalls of 
Neuroscience Research in Adolescent Health Policy, Journal of 
Adolescent Health (Sept. 2009); National Institute of Mental 
Health, The Teen Brain: Still Under Construction (2011).)  ‘The 
development and maturation of the prefrontal cortex occurs 
primarily during adolescence and is fully accomplished at the 
age of 25 years.  The development of the prefrontal cortex is very 
important for complex behavioral performance, as this region of 
the brain helps accomplish executive brain functions.’  [Citation 
to Arain et al., Maturation of the Adolescent Brain (2013) 9 
Neuropsychiatric Disease & Treatment 449.]”  (Sen. Rules Com., 
Off. of Sen. Floor Analyses, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 1308 
(2017–2018 Reg. Sess.) Sept. 4, 2017, pp. 4–5.) 
As today’s opinion acknowledges, “No one doubts that the 
Legislature’s primary purpose in expanding section 3051 to 
include young adult offenders was to give these young persons 
the opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated growth 
and rehabilitation.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 26.)  “The Legislature 
enacted section 3051 to bring California juvenile sentencing law 
into line with Graham, Miller, and Caballero.”  (Id. at p. 11.)  
Relying “not only on common sense — on what ‘any parent 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
25 
knows’ — but on science and social science,” those cases explain 
that juveniles have an underdeveloped sense of responsibility, 
vulnerability to negative influences and outside pressures, lack 
of control over their own environment, and transitory traits that 
are not fixed but developing — all of which mitigate their 
culpability and point to their capacity for rehabilitation.  (Miller, 
supra, 567 U.S. at p. 471.)  These attributes of youth also 
diminish the traditional penological justifications of retribution, 
deterrence, and incapacitation.  (See id. at p. 472; Graham, 
supra, 560 U.S. at pp. 71–73.)  As indicated in the legislative 
history, the Legislature had these concerns not only about 
juveniles but also about young adults under the age of 26. 
Further, there is no dispute that the scientific evidence 
cited by the Legislature applies to young offenders across the 
board.  Nothing about the “distinctive (and transitory) mental 
traits and environmental vulnerabilities” of youth offenders “is 
crime-specific” (Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at p. 473), and the 
Legislature nowhere suggested that young offenders who 
commit certain crimes, including crimes punishable by LWOP, 
are immune to those vulnerabilities or incapable of reform.  
There is also no dispute that providing young offenders with a 
meaningful opportunity for release in light of their capacity for 
change is the only purpose stated by the Legislature in creating 
and expanding the parole scheme.  No other purpose is stated in 
the statute or legislative history. 
The implications for equal protection analysis are 
straightforward, as the Court of Appeal discerned:  “[I]f, as the 
Legislature stated, the goal of section 3051 was to apply the 
Miller youth-related mitigating factors to young adults up to the 
age of 26 in light of neuroscience research that demonstrated 
the human brain continues to develop into a person’s mid-20’s, 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
26 
and thus to permit youth offenders a meaningful opportunity for 
parole if they demonstrate increased maturity and impulse 
control, then for that purpose there is no plausible basis for 
distinguishing between same-age offenders based solely on the 
crime they committed.”  (People v. Hardin (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 
273, 288 (Hardin).)  Just as there was no rational basis for 
excluding persons with misdemeanor convictions from eligibility 
for a teaching credential in Newland, or for excluding 
osteopathic applicants from eligibility for medical licensure in 
D’Amico, or for imposing more onerous disclosure rules on 
lawyers than on other professionals in Hays, or for excluding 
unrelated households from food stamp eligibility in Moreno, 
there is no rational basis here for excluding inmates convicted 
of special-circumstance murder from youth offender parole 
eligibility.  In each of the cited cases, the court evaluated the 
classification against “the primary purpose” (maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 26) of the statute and found the classification inconsistent 
with that purpose.  Those decisions did not impute additional, 
unstated purposes that might have justified the challenged 
classifications. 
Nor did those decisions rely on the notion that legislative 
bodies may proceed incrementally or train their attention 
wherever they feel it is needed most.  In Hays, we made clear 
that when a legislature “chooses to address a particular area of 
concern in less than comprehensive fashion,” “its decision as to 
where to ‘strike’ must have a rational basis in light of the 
legislative objectives.”  (Hays, supra, 25 Cal.3d at p. 791.)  To be 
sure, equal protection doctrine gives legislators ample leeway to 
avoid “all-or-nothing choices.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 45.)  But if 
the rational basis standard could be met by observing that the 
challenged legislation reflects a political compromise, then 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
27 
virtually no enacted policy would ever fail rational basis review.  
The Court of Appeal here rejected the argument that the 
exclusion should be upheld “on the general principle that, when 
addressing a problem, the Legislature may choose to proceed 
incrementally,” aptly noting that “ ‘the fact that a line has to be 
drawn somewhere does not justify its being drawn anywhere.’ ”  
(Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at pp. 290, 291.) 
B. 
In reaching today’s holding, the court says the Legislature 
had a second purpose when it expanded youth offender parole 
eligibility to include young adult offenders:  “[T]he structure and 
history of the [parole eligibility] expansion make clear that the 
Legislature sought to balance [its] primary objective with . . . 
concerns about culpability and the appropriate level of 
punishment for certain very serious crimes.”  (Maj. opn., ante, 
at p. 26.)  Presumably the court points to “structure and history” 
because the text of the original statute focuses solely on the 
diminished culpability of youth and their capacity for 
rehabilitation, and nothing in the text of the original statute or 
subsequent expansions indicates concerns about culpability or 
appropriate punishment for serious crimes.  But neither 
structure nor history helps the court’s argument either. 
As for history, the court says “the legislative history 
accompanying the amendments [expanding parole eligibility] 
confirms that [crime-based distinctions] were deliberate 
choices.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 26.)  That is true, but I see no 
probative value in quotations from legislative history observing 
that the Legislature through multiple rounds of statutory 
amendments retained distinctions based on the crime 
committed.  (Id. at pp. 26–27.)  Those quotations simply describe 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
28 
what the statute does; they shed no light on the Legislature’s 
rationale for the distinctions it drew.  (Cf. Cooper, supra, 21 
Cal.3d at p. 854 [“a suggested legislative purpose” of protecting 
negligent drivers from liability to owner-passengers “does no 
more than restate the terms of the statute itself and [does not] 
indicate[] the general goal which the Legislature ostensibly 
intended to promote in providing such ‘protection’ at owner-
passengers’ expense”].) 
As for structure, the court notes that the statute provides 
for parole eligibility during a youth offender’s 15th, 20th, or 25th 
year of incarceration depending on the controlling offense.  (Maj. 
opn., ante, at p. 27; see § 3051, subd. (b).)  Based on the fact that 
“the Legislature consciously drew lines that altered the parole 
component of offenders’ sentences based not only on the age of 
the offender (and thus the offender’s amenability to 
rehabilitation) but also on the offense and sentence imposed,” 
the court infers that those lines “necessarily reflect a set of 
legislative judgments about the nature of punishment that is 
appropriate for the crime.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 27.)  As the 
Court of Appeal explained, this “superficially plausible” 
inference is implausible when one considers the role of the 
controlling offense in the parole scheme.  (Hardin, supra, 84 
Cal.App.5th at p. 289.) 
The statute defines “ ‘controlling offense’ ” as “the offense 
or enhancement for which any sentencing court imposed the 
longest term of imprisonment.”  (§ 3051, subd. (a)(2)(B).)  The 
timing of parole eligibility is keyed to a person’s controlling 
offense, not to the number of offenses or the aggregate sentence.  
(Id., subd. (b).)  This means that a young adult offender serving 
an aggregate term of 85 years plus 189 years to life for two first 
degree murders, six attempted premeditated murders, various 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
29 
gang and firearm enhancements, and other crimes (People v. 
Harris (Dec. 5, 2019, B288611) [nonpub. opn.]) is eligible for 
parole on the same timeline as a young adult offender serving 
25 years to life for a single count of first degree murder (§ 190, 
subd. (a)).  It means that a young adult offender serving 80 years 
to life for two gang-related attempted premeditated murders 
with firearm enhancements (People v. Itehua (June 30, 2016, 
B265575) [nonpub. opn.]) is eligible for parole on the same 
timeline as a young adult offender convicted of a single 
attempted murder with a 25-year firearm enhancement 
(§ 12022.53, subd. (d)).  And it means a young adult offender 
sentenced to more than 100 years to life for six attempted 
premeditated murders, mayhem, gang enhancements, and 
multiple firearm offenses and enhancements (People v. Jimenez 
(Apr. 20, 2007, B192157) [nonpub. opn.]) is eligible for parole on 
the same timeline as a young adult offender convicted of a gang-
related felony in which an accomplice shot and injured a victim 
(§ 12022.53, subd. (e)(1)).  What legislature “concern[ed] about 
culpability and the appropriate level of punishment for certain 
very serious crimes” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 26) would write a 
statute with these results? 
Today’s opinion says “the statute’s ‘controlling offense’ 
framework does rely on a certain amount of generalization about 
the relationship between the lengthiest individual sentence the 
offender has received and the culpability of the underlying 
criminal conduct.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 30.)  I suppose “a 
certain amount of generalization” is in the eye of the beholder, 
but consider:  There are literally thousands of sentences 
encompassed by the provision establishing parole eligibility in 
the 25th year of incarceration for young adult offenders whose 
controlling offense carries a term of 25 years to life.  (§ 3051, 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
30 
subd. (b)(3).)  The examples above are easily multiplied.  (See, 
e.g., People v. Sepulveda (2020) 47 Cal.App.5th 291, 295–297 [90 
years to life for first degree murder, three counts of attempted 
premeditated murder, drive-by shooting, and firearm and gang 
enhancements, committed before age 22]; People v. Jones (Dec. 
30, 2020, E073115) [nonpub. opn.] [50 years to life sentence for 
single count of first degree murder with firearm and gang 
enhancements, committed at age 18]; People v. Kennedy (Jan. 
15, 2020, B264661) [nonpub. opn.] [“sentence of life, plus 173 
years and eight months,” for second degree murder, four counts 
of attempted premeditated murder, shooting at an occupied 
vehicle, and gang and firearm enhancements, committed at age 
22]; People v. Windfield (Jan. 15, 2020, E055062) opn. ordered 
nonpub. Apr. 22, 2020, S260848 [90 years to life for first degree 
murder, attempted premeditated murder, assault with a 
semiautomatic weapon, and gang and firearm enhancements, 
committed before age 23]; People v. Rakisits (Apr. 12, 2018, 
B280133) [nonpub. opn.] [40 years to life for single count of 
second degree murder with firearm enhancement, committed at 
age 18].)  To say that “the culpability of the underlying criminal 
conduct” in all of these cases is “ ‘ “rough[ly]” ’ ” the same goes 
well beyond “ ‘ “any gross generalizations.” ’ ”  (Maj. opn., ante, 
at p. 30.)  It is simply irrational. 
The Legislature presumably knew that the cases covered 
by section 3501, subdivision (b)(3) span a vast range of 
culpability based on the type and number of crimes committed 
and enhancements charged, especially in light of the 25 years-
to-life firearm enhancement (§ 12022.53, subds. (d), (e)(1)), 
which applies to a wide range of crimes.  (See In re Greg F. (2012) 
55 Cal.4th 393, 407 [“The Legislature is presumed to be aware 
of all laws in existence when it passes or amends a statute.”]; cf. 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
31 
Assem. Com. on Public Safety, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 1308 
(2017–2018 Reg. Sess.) as amended Mar. 30, 2017, p. 4 [noting 
that the parole board “held 2,519 youth offender hearings” 
during the first three years of section 3051’s implementation].)  
Yet the Legislature chose to establish a uniform rule of parole 
eligibility in the 25th year of incarceration for this large and 
varied group of young offenders.  As Hardin contends, that rule 
is untethered to relative culpability.  Today’s opinion does not 
explain why the Legislature would have fixated on relative 
culpability in its treatment of young adult offenders serving 
LWOP sentences when it was clearly indifferent to the relative 
culpability of young adult offenders serving non-LWOP 
sentences ranging from a single term of 25 years to life up to a 
wide array of de facto LWOP sentences.  (See Cooper, supra, 21 
Cal.3d at p. 852 [rejecting putative rationale for a classification 
because it did not cohere with other parts of the statute]; 
Moreno, supra, 413 U.S. at pp. 536–537 [same].) 
The court says considerations of “the appropriate 
punishment for the underlying crimes, depending on their 
severity,” are “not dissimilar from the considerations that 
prompted the high court [in Miller] to distinguish, for Eighth 
Amendment purposes, between sentencing juveniles for 
homicide offenses and sentencing juveniles for nonhomicide 
offenses.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 28.)  But the line drawn here 
between LWOP and non-LWOP sentences does not track the 
line between homicide and nonhomicide offenses.  And more 
fundamentally, the import of Miller is that juvenile sentencing 
even for the most severe crimes must be bounded by what is 
known about young offenders’ capacity for change.  Miller held 
that life without parole may be imposed on juvenile homicide 
offenders only on “ ‘rare’ ” occasions based on an individualized 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
32 
sentencing determination that “take[s] into account how 
children are different, and how those differences counsel against 
irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.”  (Miller, 
supra, 567 U.S. at pp. 479, 480.)  The Legislature, aware of 
Miller, determined that young offenders’ transient traits and 
capacity for change extend through age 25.  Denying parole 
eligibility to a subset of young offenders on the ground that their 
culpability 
categorically 
trumps 
their 
potential 
for 
rehabilitation is plainly “dissimilar” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 28) 
from 
Miller’s 
emphasis 
on 
individualized 
sentencing 
determinations to account for youth-related vulnerabilities. 
At bottom, the court says that assessing culpability on the 
basis of aggregate sentences or underlying criminal conduct is 
“not the only possible way[] to evaluate culpability.  That the 
Legislature may have prescribed a measurement of culpability 
different from Hardin’s does not mean the Legislature was not 
attempting to measure culpability at all.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 31.)  But it is not Hardin’s measurement of culpability that 
the “controlling offense” framework displaces.  It is the 
Legislature’s own measurements of culpability written into the 
Penal Code, including prescribed sentences for certain crimes 
and enhancements, as well as requirements for consecutive 
sentencing.  (E.g., §§ 190, subd. (a), 186.22, subd. (b)(1), 
12022.53, subds. (b)–(e).)  Notably, the court contends that the 
Legislature leaned into its own measurement of culpability in 
the special circumstances law (§ 190.2) when it excluded persons 
like Hardin from parole eligibility.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 41 
[there is no crime that is “more serious, or that trigger[s] more 
severe punishment, than special circumstance murder”]; see id. 
at pp. 33–34.)  And yet, the court would have us believe that the 
Legislature elsewhere in section 3051 simply ditched the 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
33 
multitude of culpability measurements it has made throughout 
the remainder of the Penal Code in favor of a three-tiered 
measurement of culpability based only on an offender’s crime or 
enhancement with the longest sentence.  (See id. at pp. 30–31.) 
There is a far simpler explanation:  In enacting and 
expanding section 3051, the Legislature was not in the business 
of measuring culpability at all, apart from recognizing the 
diminished culpability of young offenders across the board.  The 
statute’s text and history make clear that the Legislature’s 
purpose was to recognize the developmental vulnerabilities of 
young offenders and provide them a chance to earn release by 
demonstrating growth and change.  As Hardin says, the parole 
scheme simply reflects the Legislature’s general calibration as 
to how much time is needed for rehabilitation based on a young 
person’s most serious offense, keeping in mind that eligibility for 
parole does not mean release.  The tiered scheme embodies a 
legislative judgment that while the attributes of youth are not 
crime-specific, young people who commit more serious offenses 
generally require more time for rehabilitation, while young 
people who commit less serious offenses require less. 
This view readily explains the flattening of myriad 
gradations of crimes and underlying conduct into three tiers of 
parole eligibility.  Within a given tier, committing more crimes 
typically results in greater harm and culpability, but in view of 
the science on which the Legislature relied, it does not typically 
indicate less potential for growth and rehabilitation.  Moreover, 
the 15-, 20-, and 25-year benchmarks are not random numbers; 
they track the steeply declining risk of offending as people 
mature beyond early adulthood.  (See Lofstrom et al., Pub. 
Policy Institute of Cal., Are Younger Generations Committing 
Less Crime? (2023) p. 8, figure 1 [California age-crime curves 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
34 
showing that violent felony arrest rates decline significantly as 
people mature into their 30s and 40s].)  This commonsense 
understanding of the eligibility framework, unlike the court’s 
culpability rationale, is tethered to the Legislature’s stated 
purpose of providing young offenders with an opportunity for 
release in light of their diminished culpability and capacity for 
change. 
Finally, the court says “[t]he most natural” inference is not 
that the Legislature “enacted a statute at odds with its own 
rehabilitative ends” but that it was “attempting to pursue other 
‘ “(perhaps even contrary) ends as well.” ’ ”  (Maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 28.)  Similar reasoning could have been deployed in Newland, 
D’Amico, Cooper, Moreno, and other cases.  But Newland and 
D’Amico did not infer a cost-saving purpose for the exclusions at 
issue, Cooper did not accept an owner-negligence rationale for 
barring suits by owner-passengers against permissive drivers, 
and Moreno did not infer a fraud prevention purpose for 
excluding unrelated households from food stamps.  In each case, 
the court measured the classification against the express or 
primary purpose of the statute and did not hesitate to find the 
“statute at odds with its own . . . ends.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 28.)  The court simply ignores this case law in claiming its 
view of the statute is “[t]he most natural.”  (Ibid.) 
It is easy to posit that the exclusion here reflects a 
legislative assessment of culpability and proper punishment; 
the court even says this is “necessarily” what the Legislature 
thought.  (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 27, 32.)  But there is not a single 
mention of such an assessment in the repeated consideration of 
this legislation.  In contrast to the clear statements of 
rehabilitative aims, nothing in the legislative record states that 
young adult offenders serving LWOP are categorically more 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
35 
culpable than their parole-eligible peers serving de facto LWOP 
or other lengthy sentences for very serious crimes.  It is not hard 
to imagine that such a claim, had it been asserted, would have 
invited skepticism (see post, at pp. 36–41) as well as heightened 
attention to the racial skew of the affected group and its 
traceability to a history of racially inflected tough-on-crime 
policies.  (See dis. opn. of Evans, J., post, at p. 16 [“The LWOP 
exclusion perpetuates extreme racial disparities in our criminal 
and juvenile justice systems.”]; Com. on Revision of the Pen. 
Code, Annual Report and Recommendations (2021), at pp. 51, 
figure 24, 53 [among California LWOP inmates who were under 
age 26 at the time of the offense, 86 percent are people of color 
and 76 percent are Black or Latinx]; cf. Hetey & Eberhardt, 
Racial Disparities in Incarceration Increase Acceptance of 
Punitive Policies (2014) 25 Psychological Science 1949 [field 
study showing that awareness of extreme racial disparities in 
prison population made voters more accepting of punitive 
policies and less likely to support reform].) 
The Legislature did not say why it excluded persons like 
Hardin, and we should not paper over this lacuna by imputing 
a purpose that the Legislature never had.  As in past cases, we 
should take the Legislature’s actual statement of purpose at its 
word.  Doing so, I would hold that the exclusion “fails to exhibit 
any fair and reasonable relationship to the stated legislative 
objective.”  (Hays, supra, 25 Cal.3d at p. 795.) 
III. 
Even if we were to assume that the Legislature had 
concerns about culpability and appropriate punishment when it 
excluded young adults convicted of special circumstance murder 
from parole eligibility, we must still inquire whether such 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
36 
concerns provide a reasonable basis to distinguish the excluded 
group from others who are eligible for youth offender parole. 
A. 
As the Court of Appeal explained, the rationality of the 
exclusion “is belied by the statutory provisions that allow [a 
parole] hearing for individuals who have committed multiple 
violent crimes (albeit not special circumstance murder) and 
were sentenced to a technically parole-eligible indeterminate 
state prison term that is the functional equivalent of life without 
parole.  (Cf. People v. Caballero, supra, 55 Cal.4th at p. 268 
[sentence of 110 years to life for three counts of attempted 
premeditated murder with firearm-use and criminal street gang 
enhancements ‘amounts to the functional equivalent of a life 
without parole sentence’]; [citation].)  The crime of a 20-year-old 
offender who shot and killed his victim while attempting to 
commit robbery and was sentenced to life without parole (see 
§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A)) cannot rationally be considered more 
severe than those of a 20 year old who shot and killed his victim 
one day, committed a robbery the next, and was sentenced to an 
indeterminate term of 50 years to life (see §§ 190, subd. (a), 
12022.53, subd. (d)), or who committed multiple violent crimes, 
like Caballero, and received a parole-eligible indeterminate life 
term that far exceeded his or her life expectancy.”  (Hardin, 
supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at p. 289.)  As suggested by the many 
cases cited above, persons sentenced to de facto LWOP but 
eligible for a youth offender parole hearing are “far from 
anomalous.”  (Id. at p. 289, fn. 10.) 
But there is more for us to consider than a litany of 
examples.  As the Court of Appeal observed, the 2021 Annual 
Report and Recommendations (2021 Report) of the Committee 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
37 
on Revision of the Penal Code, a statutorily created committee 
of the California Law Revision Commission (Gov. Code, §§ 8280 
et 
seq.), 
cited 
recent 
research 
showing 
that 
“special 
circumstance allegations could have been charged in 95 percent 
of all first degree murder convictions, leaving the decision 
whether a life without parole sentence may be imposed to the 
discretion of local prosecutors, rather than a matter of statewide 
policy.  (2021 Report, at p. 51.)”  (Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th 
at p. 290, fns. omitted.) 
The 95 percent figure comes from a study of over 27,000 
California murder and manslaughter convictions between 1978 
and 2002, led by the late Professor David Baldus.  The findings, 
based on a representative sample of 1,900 cases, are 
comprehensively reported with methodological details in a pair 
of recent articles.  (See Baldus et al., Furman at 45: 
Constitutional Challenges from California’s Failure to (Again) 
Narrow Death Eligibility (2019) 16 J. Empirical Legal Studies 
693 (Baldus study); id. at pp. 713, 714, table 2 [reporting the 95 
percent figure]; Grosso et al., Death by Stereotype: Race, 
Ethnicity, and California’s Failure to Implement Furman’s 
Narrowing Requirement (2019) 66 UCLA L.Rev. 1394.)  One of 
the authors, Professor Catherine Grosso, further reports in an 
amicus brief that among persons under the age of 26 who were 
convicted of first degree murder, 98 percent could have been 
charged with one or more special circumstances, and that in Los 
Angeles County, the figure is 99 percent.  (See also Baldus 
study, at pp. 719–723 [California has the highest percentage of 
homicide cases that are death eligible among all states].) 
The court’s only direct response to these data is a brief 
comment that “the study appears to suggest that certain specific 
special circumstances, added through various amendments 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
38 
after the initial enactment of section 190.2, have led to the 
results found in the study,” and that Hardin is in no position to 
challenge “[t]he special circumstance finding at issue in [his] 
own case [i.e., robbery-murder]” because it “is based on a 
provision of the law that dates back to the initial enactment of 
section 190.2” in 1973.  (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 39–40.)  But this 
does not accurately characterize the Baldus study or its 
relevance to Hardin’s case.  It ignores the fact that the Baldus 
study suggests the high rate of factually death-eligible cases 
among first degree murders is significantly attributable to the 
felony murder special circumstance, including robbery murder, 
that has existed since early iterations of section 190.2.  (See 
Baldus study, supra, 16 J. Empirical Legal Studies at p. 729, 
fn. 122 [robbery felony-murder special circumstance accounted 
for 55 percent of factually death-eligible homicide cases during 
a period when that special circumstance required proof of intent 
to kill].)  It also ignores the Baldus study’s citation to an earlier 
study of several hundred California murder convictions with an 
appellate decision between 1988 and 1992, which found that 84 
percent of first degree murder cases were death-eligible under 
the statute.  (Id. at p. 704, citing Shatz & Rivkind, The 
California Death Penalty Scheme: Requiem for Furman? (1997) 
72 N.YU. L.Rev. 1283, 1332.)  That earlier study, on the very 
page cited by the Baldus study, states:  “The majority of first 
degree murders are felony murders, and felony murders are 
virtually all special circumstances murders.  Thus, the felony 
murder special circumstances alone defeat any possibility of 
genuine narrowing.”  (Shatz & Rivkind, at p. 1332, fn. omitted.) 
To be sure, charging decisions that result in a special 
circumstance conviction may attempt to target the most severe 
and culpable conduct among factually eligible cases.  But it is 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
39 
undeniable that charging decisions are also influenced by many 
factors unrelated to offense severity and culpability, including 
the policies and priorities of the district attorney, the attitudes 
and demographics of the jury pool, the strength of the evidence, 
and available resources.  As noted in an amicus brief filed here 
by the Prosecutors Alliance of California in support of neither 
party, “charging decisions have created racial, geographic, and 
temporal disparities between offenders who were charged with 
special-circumstance murder and those who were charged with 
murder without a special circumstance.”  Layered on top of well-
known racial and geographic disparities are “the vicissitudes of 
charging decisions (and politics) over time,” the brief observes.  
Such temporal disparities “mean that someone was more likely 
to be convicted of special-circumstance murder” during the 
tough-on-crime era of the past than during more recent years 
“for effectively the same crime.” 
The court is correct that “Hardin does not argue that 
prosecutorial discretion itself offends equal protection.”  (Maj. 
opn., ante, at p. 37.)  But that is not the issue.  The issue, on the 
court’s own view of legislative purpose, is whether it is rational 
to exclude young offenders convicted of special circumstance 
murder from parole eligibility on the ground that they are more 
culpable or have committed more severe offenses than their 
peers convicted of simple first degree murder.  In other words, 
is special circumstance murder in actuality “a uniquely serious 
offense” (id. at p. 2) for purposes of youth offender parole 
eligibility?  No one disputes that “[s]pecial circumstance murder 
is an unquestionably grave offense, one that exacts an 
unimaginable toll on the lives of victims and those the victims 
leave behind.”  (Id. at p. 43.)  But does that distinguish special 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
40 
circumstance murder from all or any first degree murders in this 
context? 
The panoply of charging factors unrelated to culpability, 
along with the sheer number of factually eligible cases among 
first degree murders, casts considerable doubt on the 
proposition.  As Professor Grosso observes in her amicus briefing 
here, a special circumstance conviction cannot reasonably serve 
as a proxy for severity of the crime “when virtually all of the 
youthful first-degree offenders who are eligible for parole 
consideration committed crimes that qualify for sentencing 
under California’s special circumstances statute.”  (Accord, 
Hardin, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at pp. 289–290 [“[W]ith respect 
to first degree murder, any purported legislatively recognized 
distinction in culpability between individuals serving a parole-
eligible indeterminate life sentence and those sentenced to life 
without parole is illusory.”].) 
B. 
Instead of grappling with these data, today’s opinion says 
the Baldus study is “not part of the record in this case” and 
“ha[s] never been the subject of any sort of adversarial testing.”  
(Maj. opn., ante, at p. 38.)  But the study’s findings are a 
prominent feature of the Court of Appeal’s reasoning as well as 
Hardin’s arguments and substantial amicus briefing in this 
court.  Indeed, before we set this matter for oral argument, we 
took the affirmative step of directing, not inviting, the Attorney 
General to file an answer to the amicus briefing in this case.  In 
his answer, the Attorney General did not take issue with the 
study’s findings or methodology. 
Among the hundreds of pages of briefing in this case, only 
one amicus brief, filed by the San Bernardino County District 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
41 
Attorney, questions the reliability of the Baldus study.  That 
brief asserts that the study’s data were “produced by 
inexperienced law students and recent graduates reading 
probation reports,” that probation reports may omit information 
important to charging decisions, and that the study yielded the 
“strange” finding that there is a higher rate of factually death-
eligible cases among voluntary manslaughters (47 percent) than 
among second degree murders (38 percent), though the reported 
rate among first degree murders is far higher (95 percent).  But 
the amicus brief does not engage with the coding protocol 
described at length in the peer-reviewed study.  The protocol 
sets forth a series of detailed rules for characterizing cases, 
acknowledges and addresses the limitations of probation 
reports, includes methods for curing insufficient information in 
a probation report, and notes that ultimately 11 percent of cases 
had insufficient information to permit characterization.  (See 
Baldus study, supra, 16 J. Empirical Legal Studies at pp. 708–
713 & fns. 81, 83.)  Neither the court nor any party or amicus 
has identified any specific shortcoming of the research protocol. 
While acknowledging the study’s findings, the Attorney 
General argues that “rational basis review does not require 
mathematical precision or a perfect fit.”  But no one is insisting 
on mathematical precision or a perfect fit.  The issue is whether 
there is any reasonable relation between the classification 
drawn and the purported purpose of calibrating youth offender 
parole eligibility to offense severity and culpability.  The Baldus 
study and related findings in Professor Grosso’s amicus brief are 
clearly relevant to that issue, and these findings have been 
brought to our attention in the tradition of a “Brandeis brief.”  
(See Muller v. Oregon (1908) 208 U.S. 412, 419 & fn. † 
[discussing the 113-page brief by then-attorney Louis Brandeis 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
42 
that documented social science research on the negative effects 
of long working hours on women’s well-being].)  “[W]hen a 
question of fact is debated and debatable, and the extent to 
which a special constitutional limitation goes is affected by the 
truth in respect to that fact,” courts “take judicial cognizance of 
all matters of general knowledge.”  (Id. at pp. 420–421.)  This is 
a familiar practice in constitutional adjudication.  (See, e.g., 
Graham, supra, 560 U.S. at p. 68 [“As petitioner’s amici point 
out, developments in psychology and brain science continue to 
show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult 
minds.”]; People v. Contreras (2018) 4 Cal.5th 349, 362–363 
[citing empirical research outside the record in rejecting an 
actuarial approach to defining life expectancy of juvenile 
offenders]; Johnson, supra, 60 Cal.4th at pp. 883–884 [citing 
empirical research outside of the record in determining that 
there is “more than a speculative possibility that sexual 
predators are more successful in manipulating minors to engage 
in oral copulation, as opposed to sexual intercourse”].)  Does the 
court believe these decisions, in relying on “untested empirical 
findings,” violate “multiple settled principles of judicial review”?  
(Maj. opn., ante, at p. 38.) 
If the concern is that the Baldus study has not been 
subject to adversarial testing, then the prudent course is to 
remand this case for factual development in the trial court.  In 
D’Amico, we were careful to ensure adequate presentation of 
“ ‘constitutional facts’ bearing upon the validity of the [statute 
excluding osteopaths from medical licensure] under the equal 
protection clause.”  (D’Amico, supra, 11 Cal.3d at p. 16; see id. 
at pp. 9–10 [observing that the Court of Appeal had initially 
declined to decide the equal protection issue and remanded the 
matter to the trial court for development of relevant facts].)  In 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
43 
U.S. Steel, we similarly indicated that the equal protection issue 
could not be settled “[w]ithout a more complete record”; we said 
we lacked an adequate factual basis for evaluating how 
burdensome it would be to truckers and the PUC to determine 
for rate-setting purposes whether foreign steel is transported by 
common carrier or private vessel.  (U.S. Steel, supra, 29 Cal.3d 
at p. 614.)  And the Massachusetts high court, in a recent 
decision holding LWOP unconstitutional for 18- to 20-year-olds, 
noted that it had earlier “remanded the defendant’s case to the 
Superior Court for ‘development of the record with regard to 
research on brain development after the age of seventeen [in 
order to] allow us to come to an informed decision as to the 
constitutionality of sentencing young adults to [LWOP].’ ”  
(Commonwealth v. Mattis (Mass. 2024) 224 N.E.3d 410, 416, fn. 
omitted.) 
To the extent the court has similar concerns in this case, 
we should take a similar course.  We should not dodge a key 
component of the equal protection claim on the ground that it 
was “not litigated in the trial court” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 38) 
and then proceed to establish a precedent rejecting the equal 
protection claim.  If “untested empirical findings” are the 
concern (ibid.), then why not remand this matter for factual 
development in light of the highly relevant information that has 
been brought to our attention?  The court gives no reason.  This 
head-in-the-sand approach — opting for less rather than more 
information in deciding a major constitutional question — 
hardly seems like a sound way to exercise judicial review. 
C. 
Ultimately, the core of the court’s reasoning is that our 
case law has held in the Eighth Amendment context that 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
44 
“section 190.2 adequately separates the most egregious first 
degree murders — those deserving of the most severe 
punishment available — from the rest” and that “[g]iven this 
body of case law, it is difficult to see how the Legislature that 
enacted section 3051 could have acted irrationally in singling 
out special circumstance murder as a particularly culpable 
offense.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 35, 36.) 
It is true that our capital cases have repeatedly upheld the 
special circumstances statute against claims that it does not 
properly serve the narrowing function required by the Eighth 
Amendment for imposition of the death penalty.  But what the 
court leaves unsaid is that none of the cases in its lengthy string 
cites illuminates the underlying rationale of the Eighth 
Amendment holding; the cases simply refuse to revisit 
precedent or summarily reject the claim without analysis.  (See 
maj. opn., ante, at p. 35 & fn. 6 [citing 12 cases that contain no 
substantive analysis of the issue].) 
Today’s decision cites People v. Green (1980) 27 Cal.3d 1, 
61, which “explained why the law treats robbery-murder as 
more culpable than simple murder.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 36.)  
But that case said nothing about whether the robbery-murder 
special circumstance, in operation, actually distinguishes 
crimes that are more culpable than simple murder offenses.  The 
court also cites People v. Bacigalupo (1993) 6 Cal.4th 457 
(Bacigalupo) in asserting that special circumstances “mark a 
first degree murder [as] particularly egregious.”  (Maj. opn., 
ante, at p. 34.)  We said in that case:  “In California, the special 
circumstances serve to ‘ “guide” ’ and ‘ “channel” ’ jury discretion 
‘by strictly confining the class of offenders eligible for the death 
penalty.’  [Citation.]  As the criteria in the California capital 
scheme that define the class of murders for which death is a 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
45 
potential penalty, the special circumstances set forth in section 
190.2 must comport with Eighth Amendment requirements by 
providing not only clear and objective standards for channeling 
jury discretion, but also detailed and specific guidance, thus 
making the process for imposing a death sentence ‘ “rationally 
reviewable.” ’  [Citation.]  [¶] Under our death penalty law, 
therefore, the section 190.2 ‘special circumstances’ perform the 
. . . 
constitutionally 
required 
‘narrowing’ 
function” 
of 
“circumscrib[ing] the class of murderers eligible for the death 
penalty.”  (Bacigalupo, at pp. 467–468.)  That was the extent of 
our analysis. 
Bacigalupo described the intended function of special 
circumstances but undertook no empirical inquiry or factual 
analysis of the statute’s actual operation.  That is because the 
main issue in Bacigalupo was not whether section 190.2 
adequately performs the constitutionally required narrowing 
function.  It was whether the sentencing considerations at the 
penalty phase (§ 190.3) must satisfy the Eighth Amendment’s 
narrowing principle.  (Bacigalupo, supra, 6 Cal.4th at pp. 462–
463.)  On that issue, we said that “when a capital punishment 
statute adequately narrows the class of death-eligible 
murderers, the Eighth Amendment does not require a further 
round of ‘narrowing’ at the sentence selection stage.”  (Id. at 
p. 475.)  Bacigalupo did not address whether special 
circumstances actually fulfill their intended narrowing function. 
Today’s opinion cites only one case that examined data on 
the operation of the special circumstances statute, People v. Frye 
(1998) 18 Cal.4th 894, 1028–1029 (Frye), and acknowledges that 
“[o]ur treatment of the issue in Frye was admittedly terse, and 
it relied on a different study than the one on which Hardin now 
relies.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 38.)  Given these qualifiers, it is 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
46 
not clear what persuasive value the court thinks Frye has here.  
The defendant in Frye argued that “virtually all first degree 
murders are death eligible” based on “a statistical analysis . . . 
of published appeals from murder convictions for the years 
1988–1992.”  (Frye, at pp. 1028, 1029; cf. Shatz & Rivkind, 
supra, 72 N.Y.U. L.Rev. at pp. 1326–1335.)  Our opinion in Frye 
did not discuss or even mention the actual data.  Instead, we 
rejected the claim in three short sentences:  “Defendant’s 
argument notwithstanding, the special circumstances ‘are not 
overinclusive by their number or terms.’  ([People v. Arias (1996) 
13 Cal.4th 92, 187].)  Nor have they been construed in an overly 
expansive manner.  (Ibid.; see also People v. Morales (1989) 48 
Cal.3d 527, 557–558 [lying-in-wait]; People v. Marshall (1990) 
50 Cal.3d 907, 946 [felony murder]; People v. Anderson (1987) 
43 Cal.3d 1104, 1147 [felony murder].)  Defendant’s statistics do 
not persuade us to reconsider the validity of these decisions.”  
(Frye, at p. 1029.)  The cases cited in Frye shed no further light 
on the issue, and today’s opinion cites nothing else. 
What we have, then, is a body of case law that has never 
grappled with empirical findings regarding the actual operation 
of special circumstances, much less with findings based on data 
as comprehensive as those in the Baldus study.  On this point, 
the court does not and cannot disagree.  Instead, today’s 
decision, like the cases it cites, simply piles citation upon 
citation.  But when one follows the trail of citations in search of 
a foundational rationale or analysis, one comes up empty.  
“Truly, this is ‘turtles all the way down.’ ”  (Rapanos v. United 
States (2006) 547 U.S. 715, 754 (maj. opn. of Scalia, J.).) 
I suppose the Legislature could have posited that special 
circumstance murder is categorically worse than other murders 
based on the mere fact that this court has said it again and 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
47 
again.  But the fact that our cases have said it does not make it 
so.  Under rational basis review, “ ‘the constitutionality of a 
statute predicated upon the existence of a particular state of 
facts may be challenged by showing to the court that those facts 
have ceased to exist.’ ”  (Brown, supra, 8 Cal.3d at p. 869.)  We 
have been shown information that forcefully challenges the 
rationality of including youthful offenders convicted of simple 
first degree murder in the parole scheme while excluding 
youthful offenders convicted of special circumstance murder.  
This information calls for serious engagement and analysis, not 
repeated citation to ipse dixit in our case law. 
D. 
Toward the end of today’s opinion, the court says it does 
not decide “the constitutionality of section 3051, subdivision (h) 
as it might arise in other as-applied challenges based on 
particular special circumstances or the factual circumstances of 
individual cases.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 42; see id. at p. 40 
[“While we do not foreclose the possibility of other challenges to 
the distinctions drawn by the special circumstance statute 
based on a more robust record and a more focused as applied 
inquiry.”].)  It is not clear what the court means in dangling this 
possibility.  Does it mean that Hardin or someone like Hardin 
could bring a challenge to the felony murder special 
circumstance by comparing such cases with simple murder cases 
in which the felony murder special circumstance was not 
charged or not found true?  Or does it mean that a litigant in 
Hardin’s position would have to bring a challenge specifically to 
the robbery-murder special circumstance, since that is the one 
he was convicted of?  Or does it mean that a litigant would have 
to focus the equal protection claim not simply on a “particular 
special circumstance[]” but more narrowly on a comparison to 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
48 
“individual cases” (id. at p. 42) that did not result in a special 
circumstance charge or finding but involved similar facts? 
Although the court’s lack of elaboration may be 
understandable, its gesture of purportedly leaving the door open 
to future challenges should invite some skepticism.  For it is not 
clear how a litigant can succeed on a “more focused” claim (maj. 
opn., ante, at p. 40) without running into the argument that 
even if there is disparate treatment within a subset of similar 
cases (defined by a particular special circumstance or set of 
factual circumstances), the overall classification of persons 
convicted of special circumstance murder as more culpable than 
persons convicted of simple murder is a “ ‘gross generalization[] 
and rough accommodation[] that the Legislature seems to have 
made’ ” and that “ ‘we must accept’ ” (id. at p. 30).  Indeed, given 
a prison population as large as ours, many young offenders 
serving LWOP could cite one or more cases involving equally if 
not more culpable conduct that received less punitive treatment.  
Presumably it would be easy for the court to reject such claims 
by moving the analysis up one or more levels of generality.  
What the court envisions as the proper level of “focus” is a 
mystery.  The open-door language reads like an attempt to 
cushion the blow of today’s decision; time will tell whether it 
offers only hollow hope. 
IV. 
Amidst all the legal reasoning in this case, what is missing 
are the facts of Tony Hardin’s crime, committed in 1989 at age 
25, and a real-life understanding of why the Legislature raised 
the cutoff for youth offender parole eligibility to age 26.  
According to the Court of Appeal decision affirming his 
conviction, the evidence showed that Hardin was friends with 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
49 
his elderly neighbor, Norma Barber.  One night, Hardin killed 
Barber in her home by strangling her and stole her jewelry, 
VCR, Vantage cigarettes, car keys, and other items because he 
was “desperate to buy drugs and had no money to do so.”  Hardin 
also stole two cans of beer from her fridge.  The next morning, 
Hardin tried to buy cocaine from a drug dealer using Barber’s 
necklace.  The dealer refused but offered Hardin drugs in 
exchange for a ride to pick up a drug supply.  Hardin complied 
and drove Barber’s car, which had a personalized license plate.  
After they picked up the drugs, Hardin drove to a pawn shop 
and parked the car illegally in the lot.  Inside the shop, Hardin 
exchanged Barber’s jewelry for $15 and filled out the pawn slip 
with his name and provided a thumbprint.  Meanwhile, the car 
was ticketed by a traffic officer. 
Hardin used the $15 to buy cocaine from the dealer.  That 
evening, Hardin asked for more cocaine and used the VCR as 
payment.  He also offered Barber’s microwave and brought the 
dealer to Barber’s apartment.  There, Hardin held the door open 
while the dealer took the microwave and other items.  Hardin 
also lent the dealer Barber’s car, which he parked nearby, for 
additional cocaine.  Sometime after, police came to question 
Hardin at his home.  Hardin spoke to the police and denied ever 
driving Barber’s car.  During the interview, police saw Vantage 
cigarette butts on an ashtray as well as cans of beer that 
Barber’s son had reported missing.  Hardin was ultimately 
arrested, charged, and convicted.  It does not take much to 
recognize that Hardin’s crime, driven by a drug habit and devoid 
of any sophistication, exhibited many of the hallmark features 
of youth:  “recklessness, impulsivity, and heedless risk-taking” 
(Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at p. 471); “inability to assess 
consequences” (id. at p. 472); “inability to deal with police 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
50 
officers” (id. at p. 477); and vulnerability to substance abuse (id. 
at p. 478). 
It is now almost 35 years later, and Hardin is 60 years old.  
I do not know whether he is a changed man.  But no one disputes 
that the basic propositions of “science,” “social science,” and 
“common sense” (Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at p. 471) on which the 
Legislature relied in expanding youth offender parole eligibility 
apply equally to all young adults, whatever their crimes.  The 
Attorney General, citing amicus briefs filed by neuroscience 
scholars and by Human Rights Watch, says “[t]he People have 
never 
disputed 
that 
‘[f]undamental 
changes 
in 
brain 
development’ may occur through age 25, or whether certain 
young adult offenders initially sentenced to life terms have been 
capable of demonstrating ‘remarkable’ reform.”  Some young 
offenders may be unable to show sufficient rehabilitation to gain 
parole; eligibility does not mean release.  But the Legislature 
recognized that many young offenders — through normal 
maturation as well as years of hard work in coming to terms 
with their past conduct, repaying debts to victims and society, 
and bettering themselves and others — are capable of change 
and deserve a meaningful chance at life beyond prison walls. 
Upon “ ‘a serious and genuine judicial inquiry’ ” (Newland, 
supra, 19 Cal.3d at p. 711), I see no rational basis for extending 
youth offender parole eligibility to persons convicted of simple 
murder regardless of the number or severity of their crimes, 
while denying it to the Tony Hardins who have been condemned 
to die in prison for committing similar crimes in their youth.  I 
again join numerous judges throughout the state in urging the 
Legislature to revisit this issue.  (See, e.g., People v. Jackson 
(2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 189, 202a–202b (conc. stmt. of Liu, J.) 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Liu, J., dissenting 
51 
review den. June 9, 2021, S267812; see also maj. opn., ante, at 
pp. 42–43.) 
While I agree with the court’s decision to dispense with the 
“similarly situated” step of our equal protection doctrine, I 
dissent from the merits of today’s equal protection holding.  I 
would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal. 
 
LIU, J. 
 
 
1 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
S277487 
 
Dissenting Opinion by Justice Evans 
 
Tony Hardin committed a murder in 1989 when he was 25 
years old.  Hardin, who is African American, was convicted of 
special circumstance murder and sentenced to life without the 
possibility of parole (LWOP).  In 2021, Hardin moved for a 
hearing pursuant to People v. Franklin (2016) 63 Cal.4th 261 
(Franklin) to preserve evidence related to youth mitigating 
factors for an eventual youth offender parole hearing.  The 
superior court denied the motion on the grounds he was 
ineligible for a youth offender parole hearing based on his 
LWOP sentence.  (Pen. Code, § 3051, subd. (h).)1 
The question presented is whether section 3051’s 
exclusion of youthful offenders from the youth offender parole 
eligibility scheme based on their LWOP sentence violates equal 
protection.  I would hold that it does.  The LWOP exclusion 
offends the Legislature’s only express and articulated purpose 
of the youth offender parole eligibility scheme and lacks 
rationality.  The exclusion bears the taint of racial prejudice and 
perpetuates extreme racial disparities plaguing our juvenile and 
criminal justice systems.  Thus, I conclude it fails any mode of 
rational basis review.  With respect, I dissent. 
 
1 
All further unspecified statutory references are to the 
Penal Code. 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
2 
I. 
Level of Scrutiny & Lens of Deference 
Several amici urge the court to apply strict scrutiny.  
Under the federal equal protection clause, strict scrutiny only 
applies where the challenged regulation involves a fundamental 
right or a suspect classification.  (Massachusetts Bd. of 
Retirement v. Murgia (1976) 427 U.S. 307, 312.)  Hardin 
concedes it does not apply here. 
Even assuming strict scrutiny does not apply to the 
exclusion at issue here, rational basis review still requires us to 
engage in a “ ‘serious and genuine’ ” inquiry between the 
classification and the legislative objective at issue in this case.  
(Newland v. Board of Governors (1977) 19 Cal.3d 705, 711.)  
While I generally agree that this exclusion fails under any form 
of rational basis review (see dis. opn. of Liu, J., ante), I write 
separately to explain that the nature of the deprivation and 
whether the classification can be attributed to bias should 
inform this court’s mode of deference.  A rational basis review 
that considers racial disparities in classifications is particularly 
appropriate in cases such as this “where the challenged 
classification 
appears 
to 
impose 
a 
substantially 
disproportionate burden on the very class of persons whose 
history inspired the principles of equal protection.”  (State v. 
Russell (Minn. 1991) 477 N.W.2d 886, 889.)2 
 
2  
The majority declines to consider the significance of the 
racially disparate impact of the LWOP exclusion by faulting 
Hardin for not having raised a claim that heightened scrutiny 
applies on that basis.  (Maj. opn., supra, at pp. 43–44, fn. 4.)  
However, amici raised that argument and, following our order 
 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
3 
The LWOP exclusion disproportionately impacts Black 
and Brown youth.  It perpetuates racial disparities in LWOP 
sentences for youthful offenders.  While perhaps unintentional, 
it nonetheless embodies racial bias that has plagued our 
criminal and juvenile justice systems since their inception.  The 
stakes could not be higher.  The differential treatment means 
the difference between whether young people who are otherwise 
worthy of release will die in prison or will return to society 
following a grant of parole.  The impact of that deprivation on 
an individual and their family cannot be overstated.  As the 
majority recognizes, the deprivation also extends to a societal 
level.  Society benefits from the return of rehabilitated 
individuals sentenced to LWOP to their communities.  (See 
Human Rights Watch, I Just Want to Give Back:  The 
Reintegration of People Sentenced to Life Without Parole (June 
2023) p. 4  [as of Mar. 4, 2024].)3   
Notably, a sister court has recognized that the equal 
protection guarantee of its state constitution “hold[s] lawmakers 
to a higher standard of evidence when a statutory classification 
demonstrably and adversely affects one race differently than 
other races, even if the lawmakers’ purpose in enacting the law 
was not to affect any race differently.”  (Fletcher Props. v. City 
of Minneapolis (Minn. 2020) 947 N.W.2d. 1, 19 (Fletcher).)  In 
 
directing him to do so, the Attorney General filed an answer 
addressing that argument.  Thus, due consideration of the 
racially disparate impact of the LWOP exclusion is warranted. 
3  
All Internet citations in this opinion are archived by year, 
docket number, and case name at . 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
4 
such cases, the Minnesota equal protection clause demands 
“actual (and not just conceivable or theoretical) proof that a 
statutory classification serves the legislative purpose.”  (Ibid.)  
The parties here do not present any argument that the equal 
protection guarantee of California’s constitution likewise 
requires this heightened degree of rational basis analysis.  In 
my view, the resolution of that question is not determinative in 
this case.  Our mode of deference, however, must take into 
account whether the challenged classification results in 
demonstrable and adverse racial discrimination. 
With these principles in mind, I turn to the question of 
whether section 3051’s LWOP exclusion fails rational basis 
review. 
II. 
Application of the Rational Basis Standard 
I begin with the articulated purpose of section 3051.  The 
parties agree the articulated objective of section 3051 is to 
provide youthful offenders with a meaningful opportunity to 
obtain release upon a showing of maturation and rehabilitation.  
In extending youth offender parole eligibility to those who 
committed a crime before they were 26 years of age, the 
Legislature relied on brain science establishing the attributes of 
youth are maintained until age 26.4  The LWOP exclusion — 
which impacts youthful offenders who were 18 to 25 years old at 
 
4  
Recently, the Massachusetts Supreme Court relied on 
similar brain science pertaining to 18 to 20 year olds in holding 
LWOP sentences for that age group violated the Massachusetts 
State Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual 
punishment.  (Commonwealth v. Mattis (Mass. 2024) 224 
N.E.3d 410.) 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
5 
the time of the offense — is entirely at odds with that statutory 
objective and the brain science motivating the enactment and 
extension of youth offender parole eligibility.  Youthful offenders 
sentenced to LWOP, as a class, have the same capacity for 
maturation 
and 
rehabilitation 
as 
their 
parole-eligible 
counterparts.  Their youthful age — not their offense or 
sentence — is what makes them less morally culpable and more 
likely to rehabilitate themselves such that they should be 
entitled to a youthful offender parole hearing. 
The majority speculates the Legislature excluded youthful 
offenders sentenced to LWOP to account for their culpability 
based on their offense of special circumstance murder.  This 
purported purpose not only conflicts with the statute’s actual 
purpose, but there is nothing in the statute or its history 
indicating the Legislature was motivated by any “culpability” 
rationale.  (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 26, 29; see dis. opn. of Liu, J., 
ante, at pp. 23–36.)  Contrary to the majority’s hypothesis, the 
Legislature’s decision to tether the youthful offender parole 
eligibility date to a youthful offender’s controlling offense does 
not reflect rational judgments about culpability.  (See dis. opn. 
of Liu, J., ante, at pp. 28–33.)  What’s more, the framework has 
little to no relevance to the Legislature’s choice to enact the 
exclusion at issue before us.  It is one thing to designate varying 
parole eligibility dates based on a youthful offender’s controlling 
offense.  It is quite another to exclude a class of youthful 
offenders from parole eligibility entirely based on their sentence, 
given the underlying rationale for youth offender parole.    
Even assuming we can impute a legislative rationale that 
is contrary to a statute’s purpose, a “culpability” rationale for 
the LWOP exclusion here is irrational.  The hallmarks of youth 
and the heightened potential for rehabilitation are not crime-
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
6 
specific.  (Miller v. Alabama (2012) 567 U.S. 460, 473.)  In 
retaining the attributes of youth until age 26, as the Legislature 
recognized, youthful offenders “cannot with reliability be 
classified among the worst offenders.”  (Roper v. Simmons (2005) 
543 U.S. 551, 569.)  As noted, youthful offenders who have been 
sentenced to LWOP are just as capable of becoming 
rehabilitated as their peers.  Given the neuroscience, excluding 
youthful offenders from parole eligibility based on their offense 
does not make rational sense. 
The imputed “culpability” rationale is also belied by 
uncontroverted evidence presented to the Legislature and this 
court.5  As the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code noted, 
recent research has shown that 95 percent (in one study, 98 
percent) of first degree murders could be charged as special 
circumstance murder and that factors other than culpability — 
including race — impact whether youth are convicted of special 
circumstance murder or simple first degree murder.  (Com. on 
Revision 
of 
the 
Pen. 
Code, 
Annual 
Report 
and 
Recommendations (2021) pp. 51–52  [as of Mar. 4, 2024] (Annual 
Report).)  According to the Committee, 96 percent of LWOP 
 
5  
The majority declines to engage with this uncontroverted 
research on the grounds that it was not subject to adversarial 
testing in the trial court (see maj. opn., ante, at p. 38) and that, 
even if taken at face value, the study does not “say[] nor 
suggest[] that California’s special circumstance law is 
categorically invalid.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 39.)  But, contrary 
to the majority’s suggestion, our hands are not tied.  We can do 
as we have previously done and remand the matter to the trial 
court for further factual development (see dis. opn. of Liu, J., 
ante, at pp. 42–43) and then decide whether there is a rational 
basis for the differential treatment of youthful offenders.   
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
7 
sentences are based on a special circumstance murder.  (Id. at 
p. 51.)  Hardin was convicted of a felony murder special 
circumstance.  Felony murder special circumstance accounts for 
over 50 percent of the LWOP sentences for special circumstance 
murder.  (Id. at p. 52.)  Unlike other special circumstances, the 
felony murder special circumstance does not require a mens rea 
of intent to kill.  (See People v. Anderson (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1104, 
1138–1139.) 
Black people are disproportionately convicted of the 
felony-murder special circumstance.  (Annual Report, supra, at 
p. 52.)  As the Annual Report noted, 42 percent of people 
convicted of felony murder special circumstance are Black 
“compared to only 34% of the overall first-degree murder 
population and 26% of the second-degree murder population.”  
(Ibid.)  “Rates of felony murder special circumstance convictions 
also vary by the intersection of race and age. . . .  Black 
individuals sentenced to LWOP for felony murder are much 
more likely to be younger at the time of offense than their White 
counterparts.  In fact, almost half of people who were sentenced 
to LWOP through felony murder for offenses that took place 
when they were under the age of 21 are Black.”  (Special 
Circumstances Conviction Project, Life Without Parole and 
Felony 
Murder Sentencing 
in 
California 
(2023) 
p. 
9 
 [as of Mar. 4, 2024].) 
While racial disparities exist across age groups, racial 
disparities are most prevalent “among people who were 25 or 
younger at the time of the offense and received a life without 
parole sentence — 86% are people of color.”  (Annual Report, 
supra, at p. 53.)  The total LWOP population in California is over 
5,000, and 62 percent are youthful offenders.  (Id. at pp. 50, 53.)  
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
8 
Of the roughly 3,100 youthful offenders sentenced to LWOP, 38 
percent are Black, 38 percent are Latinx, 14 percent are White, 
2 percent are Asian or Pacific Islander, 2 percent are American 
Indian/Alaskan Native, and 7 percent are “other.”  (Id. at p. 51.)  
In contrast, for the overall LWOP population, 35 percent are 
Black, 35 percent are Latinx, and 21 percent are White, with the 
same percentages for the remaining demographic groups.  
(Ibid.)  The seven percent point differential (86 percent of 
youthful offenders sentenced to LWOP are people of color, 
compared to 79 percent of the overall LWOP population are 
people of color) is due to an increased rate in sentencing Black 
and Latinx youth to LWOP, and a decreased rate in sentencing 
White youth to LWOP.6  (Ibid.) “African American youth are 
sentenced to life without parole at a rate that is 18.3 times the 
rate for whites.  Hispanic youth in California are sentenced to 
life without parole at a rate that is five times that for white 
youth in the state.”  (Human Rights Watch, When I Die, They’ll 
Send Me Home:  Youth Sentenced to Life Without Parole in 
California 
(Jan. 
2008) 
Vol. 
20, 
No. 
1 
(G) 
p. 
4 
 [as 
of Mar. 4, 2024].)  This racially disparate impact makes it 
especially important that we evaluate the classification against 
the Legislature’s articulated purpose and reject the exclusion as 
irrational.  (See Fletcher, supra, 947 N.W.2d at 19.)   
The Legislature was well aware of the racial disparities in 
LWOP sentences for youthful offenders, as the legislative 
 
6  
It would be useful to compare racial disparities among 
youthful offenders sentenced to LWOP with youthful offenders 
sentenced to an indeterminate life term for first degree murder.  
The parties, however, have not provided any such data. 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
9 
history of various bills relating to the youth offender parole 
eligibility scheme includes discussion of these disparities.7  
Although the Legislature has enacted various remedial 
measures to address racism in our justice and carceral systems, 
the question remains:  why did the Legislature ignore the brain 
science and disparate impact of the LWOP exclusion on young 
people of color?  The legislative history does not provide a 
definitive answer to this question.  The LWOP exclusion, 
however, perpetuates severe racial disparities and, given its 
historical context, bears the taint of prejudice against Black and 
Brown youth.   
III. 
The LWOP Exclusion Perpetuates Racial Bias Against Black 
and Brown Youth 
The historical context of the LWOP exclusion illuminates 
its origin and the motivating force behind it.  “To determine the 
validity of the enactment . . . it must be viewed in light of its 
historical context and the conditions existing prior to its 
enactment.”  (Mulkey v. Reitman (1966) 64 Cal.2d 529, 534.)  
“[T]he judicial branch can rely on history and context on issues 
of race to the same extent that courts have always relied on 
history and context to analyze all other issues.”  (State v. 
Hawkins (Wn. 2022) 519 P.3d 182, 196.)  “The way to stop 
discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and 
candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution 
 
7  
Notably, the Human Rights Watch submitted its report to 
the Legislature in support of Senate Bill No. 394 (2017–2018 
Reg. Sess.), which expanded the youth offender parole eligibility 
scheme to include youthful offenders who were younger than 18 
at the time of the offense and were sentenced to LWOP.   
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
10 
with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial 
discrimination.”  (Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative 
Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for 
Equality By Any Means Necessary (2014) 572 U.S. 291, 381 (dis. 
opn. of Sotomayor, J.); see id. at pp. 380–381.) 
The 
historical 
context 
of 
the 
LWOP 
exclusion 
demonstrates it was motivated — consciously or not — by racial 
bias, including racial stereotypes and myth.  The provision 
excluded a group of youthful offenders based on their LWOP 
sentence — a metric that is not reflective of their culpability or 
their potential for rehabilitation, and a sentence with a 
significant disparate impact on Black and Brown youth.  The 
Legislature enacted the LWOP exclusion against the backdrop 
of the now-debunked “superpredator” myth.  The myth distorted 
policy makers’ collective understanding of youth as a mitigating 
circumstance and instead treated it as an aggravating 
circumstance and specifically demonized young Black males.  
The LWOP exclusion tracks that myth.   
In the mid-1990s, Princeton University Professor John J. 
DiIulio, Jr., warned of an approaching violent crime surge 
perpetrated by “tens of thousands of severely morally 
impoverished” and “super crime-prone young males . . . on the 
horizon.”  (DiIulio, The Coming of the Super-Predators (Nov. 27, 
1995) 
Washington 
Examiner 
 [as of Mar. 4, 2024].)  According to DiIulio, “[A]s long 
as their youthful energies hold out, they will do what comes 
‘naturally’: murder, rape, rob, assault, burglarize, deal deadly 
drugs, and get high.”  (Ibid.)  Criminologist James Alan Fox 
likewise warned that “ ‘[u]nless we act today, we’re going to have 
a bloodbath when these kids grow up.’ ”  (Mills et al., Juvenile 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
11 
Life Without Parole in Law and Practice:  Chronicling the Rapid 
Change Underway (2016) 65 Am. U. L.Rev. 535, 582.) 
The superpredator myth particularly focused on Black 
youth.  DiIulio claimed “[t]he surge in violent youth crime has 
been most acute among black inner-city males” (DiIulio, supra, 
Washington Examiner) and predicted that “as many as half of 
[the] juvenile super-predators could be young black males.”  
(DiIulio, My Black Crime Problem, and Ours (Spring 1996) 6 
City J. 19  [as of Mar. 4, 2024].)  In 
reversing a trial court’s denial of a motion to correct an illegal 
sentence, the Connecticut Supreme Court explained, “[T]he 
superpredator 
myth 
employed 
a 
particular 
tool 
of 
dehumanization — portraying Black people as animals.  
[Citation.] . . .  The superpredator metaphor invoked images of 
packs of teens prowling the streets.  The news coverage in the 
mid-1990s, which depicted ‘young Black males, showing them 
[handcuffed] and shackled, held down by [the] police, or led into 
courtrooms wearing orange jumpsuits’ . . . [citation]  . . . left 
little doubt that the ‘packs’ were Black teens.”  (State v. Belcher 
(Conn. 2022) 268 A.3d 616, 626, 627 (Belcher).)  “Under its 
influence, all too many Black and brown children were explicitly 
or tacitly classified as ‘juvenile superpredators’ and treated as 
irredeemable monsters.”  (State v. Anderson (Wn. 2022) 516 P.3d 
1213, 1227 (dis. opn. of González, C. J.).) 
The superpredator myth “turn[ed] upside down the 
constitutional mandate of Roper and its progeny.  By labeling a 
juvenile as a superpredator, the very characteristics of youth 
that should serve as mitigating factors in sentencing — 
impulsivity, submission to peer pressure, deficient judgment — 
are treated instead as aggravating factors justifying harsher 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
12 
punishment.”  (Belcher, supra, 268 A.3d at p. 629.)  “The 
‘superpredator’ was constructed as the ultimate other, as 
possessing all the characteristics that innocent young children 
do not. . . .  And because the ‘superpredator’ was the antithesis 
of childhood, it was slyly constructed as young, Black, and 
male.”  (Nunn, The End of Adolescence:  The Child as Other:  
Race and Differential Treatment in the Juvenile Justice System 
(2002) 51 DePaul L.Rev. 679, 713.) 
Empirical evidence quickly demonstrated that the 
superpredator myth was baseless and false.  Between 1994 and 
2009, the juvenile crime rate dropped by half.  (Southerland, 
Youth Matters:  The Need to Treat Children Like Children (2015) 
27 J. Civ. Rights & Economic Development 765, 777 
(Southerland).)  There was “a fifty-six percent decline in 
homicides committed by juveniles from 1993 to 1998, and a 
thirty percent decline in overall juvenile crime during the same 
period.”  (Barton, Reconciling the Burden:  Parental Liability for 
the Tortious Acts of Minors (2002) 51 Emory L.J. 877, 879.)  In 
California, “from 1980 to 2016, the arrest rate among those 17 
or younger dropped by 84 percent.”  (Lofstrom et al., Public 
Policy Institute of Cal., New Insights into California Arrests:  
Trends, Disparities, and County Differences (Dec. 2018) p. 3 
 [as of Mar. 4, 2024].)  “Moreover, the predictions 
that youth of color would be primarily responsible for increases 
in violent crime were proven false.  The fluctuations in juvenile 
homicide rates during the last two decades have not been 
specific to any demographic groups, peaking in 1994 for both 
African-American and white teenagers before falling through 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
13 
the year 2000.”  (Southerland, supra, 27 J. Civ. Rights & 
Economic Development at p. 777.) 
Despite the drop in juvenile crime and arrest rates, the 
overall size of the incarcerated juvenile population grew in 
response to the superpredator myth, disproportionately 
impacting youth of color.  “[F]our out of five youth newly held in 
detention between 1983 and 1997 were juveniles of color.  The 
transfer of juveniles of color to adult court was equally, if not 
more, disproportionate. . . .  These numbers persist even today.”  
(Moriearty & Carson, Cognitive Warfare on Young Black Males 
in America (2012) 15 J. Gender, Race & Justice 281, 300–301, 
fn. omitted.)  “Ultimately, the sinister connections between race, 
crime, and youth led to punitive sanctions, like life without 
parole, for young offenders.”  (Southerland, supra, 27 J. Civ. 
Rights & Economic Development at p. 781.)  As a result, Black 
and Brown young people were sentenced to LWOP at extreme 
and disparate rates in California.8 
 
8  
During the era of the superpredator myth, LWOP 
sentences swelled in the United States — increasing by over 400 
percent between 1992 and 2016.  (Seeds, Life Sentences and 
Perpetual Confinement (2021) Annual Review of Criminology, 
at p. 288  [as of Mar. 4, 2024]; see 
Annual Report, supra, at p. 50.)  “[T]he overwhelming majority 
of JLWOP sentences were imposed in the mid-1990s . . . 
pursuant to policies adopted at the height of fear over the myth 
of the superpredator. . . .  A handful of jurisdictions [including 
California] are responsible for imposing two-thirds of all 
JLWOP sentences.”  (Mills et al., supra, 65 Am. U. L.Rev. at pp. 
560, 563.)  Notably, prior to this proliferation in the use of the 
sentence, LWOP operated as a sentence wherein a governor 
(rather than a parole board) was tasked with granting parole, 
 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
14 
While 
empirical 
evidence 
demonstrated 
that 
the 
superpredator myth was baseless and false, the myth “tapped 
into and amplified racial stereotypes that date back to the 
founding of our nation.”  (Belcher, supra, 268 A.3d at p. 626.)  
The superpredator myth “relied heavily on ‘racist imagery and 
stereotypes’ and harkened back to ‘historic representations of 
African Americans [and other people of color] as violence-prone, 
criminal and savage.”  (Southerland, supra, 27 J. Civ. Rights & 
Economic Development at p. 773.) 
The superpredator myth is one of many incarnations of 
racism that have plagued our criminal and juvenile justice 
systems since their inception.  For example, once juvenile courts 
became more accessible to Black youth in the mid-1900s, the 
justice system shifted away from a rehabilitative objective and 
became more punitive.  (Lapp, Young Adults & Criminal 
Jurisdiction (2019) 56 Am. Crim. L.Rev. 357, 386, citing Ward, 
The Black Child-Savers:  Racial Democracy and Juvenile Justice 
(2012) p. 4.)  “[T]he increase in disproportionate minority 
contact with juvenile court overlaps with the decline of the 
rehabilitative ideal and the rise of a more punitive juvenile 
court.”  (Lapp, at p. 386.)  At the same time, politicians began 
treating youth not as individuals in need of guidance, support, 
and perhaps treatment — but as looming forces threatening to 
destroy public safety.  (See Henning, The Challenge of Race and 
Crime in a Free Society:  The Racial Divide in Fifty Years of 
Juvenile Justice Reform, 86 Geo. Wash. L.Rev. 1604, 1618–1620 
(Henning).)  The superpredator myth was an apex of racial 
 
whereas it is now treated as “ ‘the other death penalty’ ” — a 
death-in-prison sentence.  (Seeds, Life Sentences and Perpetual 
Confinement, supra, Annual Review of Criminology at p. 302.)   
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
15 
prejudice in criminal and juvenile justice policy and catalyzed 
“nearly every state in the country to step up the sentencing and 
punishment of juveniles.”  (Belcher, supra, 268 A.3d at p. 628; 
see Henning, supra, 86 Geo. Wash. L.Rev. at p. 1620.)  It also 
coincided with a proliferation in the use of LWOP sentences — 
particularly for Black and Brown youthful offenders.  (See pp. 
7–8, ante; see also Mills et al., The Phillips Black Project, No 
Hope:  Re-Examining Lifetime Sentences for Juvenile Offenders 
(2015) 
p. 
10 
 [as of Mar. 4, 2024].)  “Starting in 
1992, the height of the superpredator panic, a black juvenile 
arrested for homicide has been twice as likely to be sentenced to 
LWOP as his white counterpart.”  (Id. at p. 9.) 
In 
California, 
the 
superpredator 
myth 
animated 
legislation 
underpinning 
LWOP sentences for youthful 
offenders.  For example, as a direct result of the superpredator 
myth, voters passed Proposition 21 in 2000.  (See de Vries, Guilt 
By Association:  Proposition 21’s Gang Conspiracy Law Will 
Increase Youth Violence in California (2002) 37 U.S.F. L.Rev. 
191, 197; see also Assem. Com. on Public Safety, Analysis of Sen. 
Bill No. 1391 (2017–2018 Reg. Sess.) as amended May 25, 2018, 
pp. 4–5 [acknowledging the shift towards punitive treatment of 
youth “was fueled by media’s portrayal of youth as ‘super-
predators,’ consistent with the era’s tough on crime attitude. . . .  
In 2000, Proposition 21 again dramatically shifted California’s 
criminal justice policies”].)  Proposition 21, among other things, 
created the gang-murder special circumstance and allowed — 
and sometimes mandated — charging children as young as 14 
years old directly in adult criminal court.  In advocating for the 
initiative’s passage, proponents adopted the language of the 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
16 
superpredator myth, 
perpetuating 
racial 
prejudice 
and 
capitalizing on dire “predictions of a juvenile crime wave.” 
(Voter Information Guide, Primary Elec. (Mar. 7, 2000), 
argument in favor of Prop. 21, p. 48.)  Contrary to the ballot 
material claims, juvenile crime had, in fact, been declining since 
1993.  (See pp. 10–11, ante.) 
Even after the superpredator myth was exposed as false 
and the system began to refocus on rehabilitation, Black youth 
continue to disproportionately “experience the devastating 
effects of legislative and policy shifts that undermined the core 
rehabilitative philosophy of American juvenile courts in the 
wake of the superpredator myth.” (Henning, supra, 86 Geo. 
Wash. L.Rev. at p. 1622.)  They continue to be viewed as older 
and more culpable than White youth (id. at p. 1627) and, as 
noted above, have experienced the disproportionate imposition 
of LWOP sentences.  Passed in the wake of the superpredator 
myth, the LWOP exclusion at issue here is part of this legacy of 
dehumanization and harm against Black and Brown youth. 
* 
* 
* 
The 
LWOP 
exclusion 
perpetuates 
extreme 
racial 
disparities in our criminal and juvenile justice systems.  The 
historical and invidious discrimination against Black and 
Brown youth in criminal and juvenile justice policy provides 
important context when analyzing whether the exclusion has a 
rational basis.  The LWOP exclusion is particularly striking 
since the Legislature otherwise recognizes that youthful 
offenders as a class have diminished moral culpability.  
Particularly given the context of the LWOP exclusion’s 
enactment and its discriminatory impact, the statutory 
classification must serve the Legislature’s expressed purpose — 
PEOPLE v. HARDIN 
Evans, J., dissenting 
 
17 
to provide youthful offenders with a meaningful opportunity to 
obtain release upon a showing of maturation and rehabilitation.  
In light of that purpose and lack of any difference in the brain 
development or capacity for rehabilitation between excluded 
and non-excluded young people, the LWOP exclusion is 
irrational. 
This case calls on us to correct a legacy of casting Black 
and Brown youth as predatory, remorseless, and irredeemable, 
older than they are, and treated differently from White youth.  
The equal protection clause demands that lawmakers extend 
the mercy, dignity and grace embodied in the youthful offender 
parole eligibility scheme to all youth — regardless of the crimes 
of which they were convicted.  As a class, they all are less 
morally culpable and are more likely to become rehabilitated 
based on accepted scientific evidence regarding adolescent brain 
development.  The majority has avoided this heed with the 
hollow promise of another day.  I urge the Legislature to correct 
itself by ridding section 3051 of the LWOP exclusion and 
extending youth offender parole eligibility to all individuals who 
were convicted in their youth. 
I respectfully dissent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
EVANS, J. 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who 
argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion  People v. Hardin 
__________________________________________________________  
 
Procedural Posture (see XX below) 
Original Appeal  
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted (published) XX 84 Cal.App.5th 273 
Review Granted (unpublished)  
Rehearing Granted 
__________________________________________________________  
 
Opinion No. S277487 
Date Filed:  March 4, 2024 
__________________________________________________________  
 
Court:  Superior  
County:  Los Angeles 
Judge:  Juan Carlos Dominguez 
__________________________________________________________   
 
Counsel: 
 
William L. Heyman, under appointment by the Court of Appeal; 
Munger, Tolles & Olson, William D. Temko, Sara A. McDermott, Adeel 
Mohammadi; USC Post-Conviction Justice Project, Heidi Rummel, 
Michael Parente and Danielle A. Wilkins for Defendant and Appellant. 
 
Complex Appellate Litigation Group and Greg Wolff for Human Rights 
Watch, State Senator Loni Hancock (Ret.), the Anti-Recidivism 
Coalition, the LWOP Alliance Group at Calipatria State Prison and the 
National Life Without Parole Leadership Council as Amici Curiae on 
behalf of Defendant and Appellant. 
 
Law Office of B.C. McComas, Brian C. McComas; and Eric Weaver for 
the Santa Clara County Independent Defense Counsel Office as 
Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant. 
 
Cooley, Kathleen R. Hartnett, Darina Shtrakhman, Prianka Misra, 
Ariana E. Bustos, Adam S. Gershenson, Matt K. Nguyen; and Marsha 
L. Levick for Neuroscience, Psychology and Juvenile Justice Scholars, 
 
 
Juvenile Law Center, the American Academy of Pediatric 
Neuropsychology, the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center and the 
Sentencing Project as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and 
Appellant. 
 
Kim Saltz; Avram Frey; Summer Lacey; and Diana Garrido for The 
ACLU, The ACLU of Northern California, The ACLU of Southern 
California, The California Public Defenders Association and The 
Contra Costa Public Defender Office as Amici Curiae on behalf of 
Defendant and Appellant. 
 
Law Office of Michael Laurence and Michael Laurence for Catherine 
M. Grosso as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant. 
 
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Michael J. Mongan, State Solicitor 
General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan 
Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Helen H. Hong, Deputy 
State Solicitor General, Noah P. Hill, Idan Ivri and Nima Razfar, 
Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.  
 
Jason Anderson, District Attorney (San Bernardino), and Brent J. 
Schultze, Deputy District Attorney, for the District Attorney of San 
Bernardino County as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and 
Respondent. 
 
Kent S. Scheidegger and Kymberlee C. Stapleton for Criminal Justice 
Legal Foundation as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and 
Respondent. 
 
Jeffrey F. Rosen, District Attorney (Santa Clara), and David R. Boyd, 
Deputy District Attorney, for the District Attorney of Santa Clara 
County as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Respondent. 
 
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Eric D. Vandevelde, Jamila D. MacEbong, 
Patrick J. Fuster, Benjamin W. Holston, Jenna Bernard, Maya M. 
Halthore and Allison P. Miller for Prosecutors Alliance of California as 
Amicus Curiae. 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for 
publication with opinion):  
 
Heidi Rummel 
USC Post-Conviction Justice Project 
699 Exposition Boulevard, University Park 
Los Angeles, CA 90089 
(213) 740-2865 
 
Sara A. McDermott 
Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP 
350 South Grand Avenue, 50th Floor 
Los Angeles, CA 90071 
(213) 683-9556 
 
Helen H. Hong 
Deputy State Solicitor General 
600 West Broadway, 18th Floor 
San Diego, CA 92101 
(619) 738-9693