Filed 6/26/17

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

IGNACIO CASTEL,

Defendant and Appellant.

 B271396

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No. 6PH00808)

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County. Robert M. Kawahara, Commissioner. Affirmed.

Wayne C. Tobin, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief 

Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Senior Assistant 

Attorney General, Shawn McGahey Webb, Supervising Deputy 

Attorney General, Noah P. Hill, Deputy Attorney General, for 

Plaintiff and Respondent.

* * * * * *
2

When a supervising agency files a petition to modify, 

revoke, or terminate a criminal defendant’s parole or postrelease 

community supervision, its petition must be accompanied by a 

written report containing information specified by statute and 

the California Rules of Court. (Pen. Code, §§ 1203.2, subd. (b)(1) 

& 3000.08, subd. (f);1 Cal. Rules of Court, rule 4.541.) When a 

district attorney files such a petition, its petition need not be 

accompanied by such a report. (§ 1203.2, subd. (b)(1); 

cf. § 3000.08, subd. (f).) Does this procedural difference violate 

equal protection by treating similarly situated defendants 

differently without a rational basis for doing so? We conclude 

there is no equal protection violation, and affirm the revocation of 

parole in this case.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Ignacio Castel (defendant) pled no contest to one count of 

felony assault (§ 459), and he was sentenced to three years in 

state prison. Following his release from state prison, he was 

placed on parole.

In 2015, while on parole, defendant threatened to kill two 

of his in-laws. The People charged him with a misdemeanor 

violation of making criminal threats (§ 422). He pled no contest 

to the charge, and the trial court sentenced him to three years of 

informal probation, including nine days in jail.

Soon thereafter, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s 

Office (District Attorney) filed a petition seeking revocation of 

defendant’s parole.

Defendant filed a demurrer to the petition. He argued that 

the District Attorney’s petition was facially deficient under 

 

1 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code 

unless otherwise indicated.
3

People v. Osorio (2015) 235 Cal.App.4th 1408 (Osorio) because it 

was not accompanied by the written report that must accompany 

petitions filed by supervising parole agencies. Defendant also 

filed a “motion for sanctions” in which he sought an order 

compelling the preparation of a written report, asserting that the 

Legislature’s failure to require a written report for district 

attorney-filed petitions violated equal protection.

In a nine-page order, the trial court overruled the demurrer 

and denied the motion for sanctions. The court overruled the 

demurrer because the pertinent statutes authorize a district 

attorney to file a petition to revoke parole without any 

accompanying report. The court also rejected defendant’s equal 

protection argument. The court accepted that parolees and other 

supervised persons are similarly situated no matter who (a 

district attorney or a supervising parole agency) seeks their 

revocation. However, the court concluded that our Legislature 

had a rational basis for treating the two groups differently—

namely, (1) that a written report spelling out additional 

information about the parolee’s or supervised person’s “history 

and background” as well as an explanation as to why sanctions 

short of revocation are appropriate “is less essential for parolerevocation petitions filed by a district attorney because they 

typically involve violations amounting to criminal conduct (rather 

than technical violations)”; and (2) that the information 

necessary to compile the required written report is not available 

to district attorneys.2

 

2 The trial court ordered the district attorney to turn over the 

investigative reports pertaining to the crime underlying 

defendant’s alleged parole violation “as discovery materials.” The 
4

Defendant then waived his rights to a contested hearing 

and admitted the parole violation. The trial court sentenced 

defendant to 150 days in jail and reinstated his parole.

Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal. Although 

defendant’s appointed counsel filed a brief pursuant to People 

v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436, and defendant filed no 

supplemental brief, we independently reviewed the record and 

ordered supplemental briefing on the issues set forth in this 

opinion.

DISCUSSION

Defendant contends that the trial court erred in 

(1) overruling his demurrer, and (2) rejecting his equal protection 

argument. We review both claims de novo. (Aryeh v. Canon 

Business Solutions, Inc. (2013) 55 Cal.4th 1185, 1191 [demurrer]; 

California Grocers Assn. v. City of Los Angeles (2011) 52 Cal.4th 

177, 208 [equal protection claim].)

As a threshold matter, the People argue that defendant’s 

challenge to his parole violation is now moot because he has 

finished serving the 150-day jail sentence that was the sole 

penalty for his violation. We have the discretion to reach issues 

present on appeal, even if they are moot, if they involve “issues of 

broad public interest that are likely to recur.” (Coachella Valley 

Mosquito & Vector Control Dist. v. California Public Employment 

Relations Bd. (2005) 35 Cal.4th 1072, 1079, fn. 3.) The demurrer 

and equal protection issues presented in this appeal qualify as 

such.

 

People do not challenge this portion of the order, and we 

accordingly have no occasion to address its propriety.
5

I. Demurrer

A defendant in a criminal case may demur to a charging 

document on several grounds, including the absence of 

“jurisdiction of the offense charged therein” and any “legal bar to 

the prosecution.” (§ 1004, subds. 1 & 5.)

Depending on the offense(s) for which they have been

incarcerated, persons released from state prison are placed either 

(1) on parole, where they are supervised by the Department of 

Corrections and Rehabilitation, or (2) on postrelease community 

supervision, where they are supervised by a county probation 

office. (§§ 3000.08, subds. (a), (b), (i) & 3451.) A petition to 

revoke a defendant’s parole or postrelease community supervision 

may be filed by the parole officer (in the case of parole), the 

probation officer (in the case of postrelease community 

supervision), or the district attorney. (§ 1203.2, subd. (b)(1).)

If the petition is filed by the parole or probation officer, the 

petition must “include a written report that contains additional 

information regarding the petition.” (§ 3000.08, subd. (f).) That 

additional information includes: (1) “the relevant terms and 

conditions of parole” or postrelease community supervision, 

(2) “the circumstances of the alleged underlying violation,” 

(3) “the history and background of the parolee,” 

(4) “recommended sanctions,” and (5) “the reasons for [the]

agency’s determination that intermediate sanctions without court 

intervention”—such as electronic monitoring, additional services 

or incentives, or “flash incarceration” (that is, a short stint in jail 

for up to 10 consecutive days)—“are inappropriate responses to 

the alleged violations.” (§§ 3000.08, subds. (e), (f) & 3454, subd. 

(b); Cal. Rules of Court, rule 4.541(c), (e).)
6

If the petition is filed by the district attorney, no such 

written report is required. (Cf. § 3000.08, subd. (f); Cal. Rules of 

Court, rule 4.541.) Instead, the court will “refer . . . the petition 

to the probation or parole officer,” who must then prepare and 

submit a written report to the court. (§ 1203.2, subd. (b)(1).)

A supervising agency’s failure to include the statutorily 

required written report with a petition for revocation renders the 

pleading deficient and subject to demurrer. (Osorio, supra, 

235 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1412-1415; see also People v. Hronchak

(2016) 2 Cal.App.5th 884, 891-892 [applying this rule to 

information that California Rules of Court, rule 4.541 specifies 

must be included in the written report].)

The trial court correctly overruled the demurrer in this 

case. The pertinent statutes detailed above do not require a 

petition to revoke parole or postrelease community supervision

filed by a district attorney to be accompanied by a written report. 

Accordingly, the district attorney’s failure to include such a 

report does not render the pleading deficient.

II. Equal Protection

Both the federal and California Constitutions guarantee 

that no person shall be “den[ied] . . . the equal protection of the 

laws.” (U.S. Const., 14th Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 7.) Equal 

protection of the laws means that similarly situated persons shall 

be treated similarly unless there is a sufficiently good reason to 

treat them differently. (People v. Morales (2016) 63 Cal.4th 399, 

408; Engquist v. Oregon Depart. of Agriculture (2008) 553 U.S. 

591, 602; see Johnson v. Department of Justice (2015) 60 Cal.4th 

871, 881 (Johnson) [federal and state equal protection guarantees 

have similar interpretation].)
7

The first step in evaluating any equal protection claim is 

determining whether there are two groups of individuals who are 

“‘“similarly situated with respect to the legitimate purpose of the 

law”’” but are being treated differently. (People v. Barrett (2012) 

54 Cal.4th 1081, 1107, quoting In re Gary W. (1971) 5 Cal.3d 296, 

303; accord, Vergara v. State of California (2016) 246 Cal.App.4th 

619, 644.) If the two groups are not similarly situated or are not 

being treated differently, then there can be no equal protection 

violation. However, if these threshold requirements are met, a 

court must next ascertain whether the Legislature has a 

constitutionally sufficient reason to treat the groups differently. 

(In re Marriage Cases (2008) 43 Cal.4th 757, 831.) Unless the 

groups are defined by word or effect as members of a “suspect 

class” (such as race, national origin, gender, or illegitimacy, to 

name a few) or the law affects a fundamental right, a law will be 

upheld as long as there is any “‘“rational relationship between 

the disparity of treatment and some legitimate governmental

purpose,”’” even if the rational basis for that law was never 

articulated by—or even relied on by—the Legislature. (Johnson, 

supra, 60 Cal.4th at p. 881; cf. People v. Wilkinson (2004) 

33 Cal.4th 821, 836 (Wilkinson) [for laws drawing distinctions 

based on membership in a suspect class or affecting a 

fundamental right, courts will apply “strict” or “intermediate”

scrutiny].)

Defendant posits that all former state prisoners subject to 

parole and postrelease community supervision are similarly 

situated because all are being supervised. He further posits that 

the Legislature is treating those whose parole or postrelease 

community supervision revocation proceedings are initiated by a 

petition from the supervising agency differently than those whose 
8

parole or postrelease community supervision revocation 

proceedings are initiated by a petition from the district attorney. 

The first group is entitled to have the entity seeking revocation 

file a written report concurrently with its petition to revoke; the 

second group is not. There is no possible reason, defendant 

continues, for the Legislature to draw this distinction and the 

statutes on their face consequently violate equal protection.

It is far from clear that the two groups defendant 

identifies—those whose revocation proceedings are initiated by a 

supervising agency and those whose are initiated by a district 

attorney—are similarly situated. Supervising agencies have a 

broad mandate to rehabilitate the people they supervise and to 

facilitate their “transition from inmate to free citizen.” (People 

v. Guzman (2005) 35 Cal.4th 577, 586; People v. Reyes (1998) 

19 Cal.4th 743, 752; § 3000, subd. (a)(1) [legislative finding that 

“the period immediately following incarceration is critical to 

successful reintegration of the offender into society”].) District 

attorneys, by contrast, have a different mandate—namely, to 

“initiate and conduct on behalf of the people all prosecutions for 

public offenses.” (Gov. Code, § 26500; see also id., § 100, subd. 

(b); People v. Birks (1998) 19 Cal.4th 108, 134 [“prosecuting 

authorities . . . ordinarily have the sole discretion to determine 

whom to charge with public offenses and what charges to bring”]; 

People v. Eubanks (1996) 14 Cal.4th 580, 588-589 [same].) As a 

result, revocation petitions filed by a district attorney necessarily 

allege the commission of a public offense, while petitions filed by 

a supervising agency can allege a far broader universe of more 

technical parole violations. (E.g., Osorio, supra, 235 Cal.App.4th 

at p. 1415 [defendant alleged to have talked to two gang members 

for 10 minutes, in violation of parole term not to associate with 
9

gang members].) Although it is possible for a supervising agency 

to file a revocation based on allegations of criminal conduct, by 

and large the two groups involve different degrees of parole 

violations and are on that basis not similarly situated.

It is also unclear that the two groups defendant identifies 

are being treated differently. When a revocation petition is filed 

by a district attorney, the court is statutorily required to “refer” 

that petition to the supervising agency for the completion of a 

“written report.” (§ 1203.2, subd. (b)(1).) To the extent that 

written report has the same content as the written report that 

must accompany a revocation petition filed by a supervising 

agency (a point on which the statute is silent but which is 

undoubtedly a good practice), the only differential treatment

between the two groups would be the timing of the production of 

the report—concurrently with the petition (when filed by a 

supervising agency) versus at some point prior to the final 

revocation hearing (when filed by a district attorney).3 Given 

that the absence of this report is not, as discussed above, a basis 

for demurrer when a revocation petition is filed by a district 

attorney, the difference in timing would not appear to be a 

meaningful distinction in treatment. This is true because, no 

matter when the trial court receives the report, it has the power 

to deny revocation and instead to impose lesser sanctions. 

 

3 Both groups are entitled to the same procedural due 

process protections. (See Williams v. Superior Court (2014) 

230 Cal.App.4th 636, 652-654; see generally Morrissey v. Brewer

(1972) 408 U.S. 472, 488-489; People v. Vickers (1972) 8 Cal.3d 

451, 457-458; accord, Assem. Bill No. 1470 (2011-2012 Reg. Sess.) 

§ 45 [noting “intent of the Legislature” to incorporate due process 

protections into § 1203.2].)
10

(§§ 3000.08, subds. (f) & (g); 3004, subd. (a).) Moreover, nothing 

in the statute precludes the supervising agency from working in 

tandem with a district attorney by generating and providing the 

report to the court simultaneously with the district attorney’s 

petition.

Even if we assume that the two groups of supervised 

persons are similarly situated and are being treated differently, 

our Legislature had a rational basis for doing so—two such bases, 

in fact. We review the classification at issue in this case between 

supervised persons only for rationality because it is not based 

upon membership in any suspect class and because laws that 

draw distinctions in criminal cases do not, except when 

demarking “the boundaries between the adult and juvenile 

criminal justice systems,” implicate a fundamental right. 

(Wilkinson, supra, 33 Cal.4th at pp. 836-838.)

We can hypothecate two reasons why our Legislature would 

require a revocation petition filed by a supervising agency to be 

accompanied by a written report detailing the supervised 

person’s terms of parole, history and background, and reasons for 

rejecting lesser sanctions, but forego that requirement for a 

petition filed by a district attorney.

First, the nature of the allegations set forth in the 

revocation petitions filed by supervising agencies is likely to be 

different than the nature of the allegations set forth in petitions 

filed by district attorneys. Because, as noted above, it is the job 

of district attorneys to prosecute public offenses, petitions filed by 

the district attorney will necessarily allege the supervised 

person’s commission of a crime. The directive not to commit more 

crimes is almost always a term of parole or postrelease 

community supervision, and the violation of this directive falls on 
11

the severe end of the spectrum of violations for which revocation 

of parole or postrelease community supervision is, as a general 

rule, more likely to be the appropriate sanction. The written 

report specified by statute and court rule details the terms of 

probation, the supervised person’s history on parole, and reasons 

for not seeking lesser sanctions; this content is directed toward a 

determination of whether to impose sanctions short of revocation, 

a determination less relevant to a revocation proceeding when 

the basis for revocation is the commission of a further crime. It is 

certainly rational not to require a district attorney to expend its 

finite and limited resources preparing a written report that will 

be of limited utility in assisting a court in evaluating the 

revocation petitions the district attorney files. (Accord, Genesis 

Environmental Services v. San Joaquin Valley Unified Air 

Pollution Control Dist. (2003) 113 Cal.App.4th 597, 607, fn. 11 

[noting how prosecutors have “limited resources” and are 

“granted greater deference” in how to allocate them]; Moreno 

v. Draper (1999) 70 Cal.App.4th 886, 897 [noting rationality of 

distinctions acknowledging the “limited fiscal resources” of state 

agencies].) By contrast, petitions filed by the supervising agency 

can and do involve more technical violations—violations for 

which the supervised person’s history on parole and the 

availability of sanctions short of revocation are far more 

pertinent.

Second, supervising agencies and district attorneys do not 

have the same degree of access to the information necessary to 

compile the written report called for by statute. Supervising 

agencies have ready access to that information; they have all of 

the terms of the person’s parole or postrelease community 

supervision, know his or her full history of violations under 
12

supervision, and have tools to evaluate the propriety of various 

sanctions. (Osorio, supra, 235 Cal.App.4th at p. 1413 [discussing 

“parole violation decisionmaking instrument” available to 

Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation].) District 

attorneys do not. To be sure, a supervising agency may share its 

information with the district attorney. But it is not required to 

do so. Requiring a district attorney to compile a written report 

based on information it has no right to obtain—on pains of 

having a revocation petition dismissed on demurrer—is an 

absurd result, one the Legislature may well have opted not to 

chance. (See B.H. v. County of San Bernardino (2015) 62 Cal.4th 

168, 190 [courts assume legislatures do not draft statutes leading 

to absurd consequences].)

Defendant raises two further arguments. First, he 

contends that People v. Chatman (2016) 2 Cal.App.5th 561, 

review granted November 16, 2016, S237374, mandates a 

different result. It does not. Chatman held that the Legislature 

had no rational basis for declaring persons who had previously 

been on probation for a felony offense ineligible to obtain a 

certificate of rehabilitation under section 4852.01, while declaring 

eligible persons who had previously been imprisoned for a felony 

offense. (Chatman, at pp. 572-573.) As discussed above, we have 

identified two legitimate grounds on which the Legislature could 

rationally distinguish supervised persons facing revocation due to 

a petition filed by a district attorney from those facing revocation 

due to a petition filed by a supervising agency.

Second, defendant asserts that there are no standards to 

govern when a district attorney files a revocation proceeding 

(and, consequently, when a petition will be filed by a district 

attorney instead of a supervising agency). Although there is no 
13

standard expressly set forth in section 1203.2, the scope of a 

district attorney’s statutory authority effectively delineates that 

district attorney-based revocation petitions will be based on the 

alleged commission of a public offense.

DISPOSITION

The order is affirmed.

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION.

______________________, J.

HOFFSTADT

We concur:

_________________________, Acting P. J.

ASHMANN-GERST

_________________________, J.

CHAVEZ