Filed 1/29/21 P. v. Joseph CA2/4

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF 

CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FOUR

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

ERIC SCOTT JOSEPH,

Defendant and Appellant.

 B304271

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No. BA050650)

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County, David V. Herriford, Judge. Affirmed.

Christine M. Aros, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, 

Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Senior 
2

Assistant Attorney General, Arlene A. Sevidal and Minh U. 

Le, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

____________________________________________________

INTRODUCTION

A jury convicted appellant of first degree murder with 

special circumstances, a crime he committed when he was 20 

years old. The court sentenced appellant to life in prison 

without the possibility of parole (LWOP). Following the 

enactment of Penal Code section 3051, appellant petitioned 

the superior court for a youth offender parole hearing under 

that statute.1 Section 3051 affords these parole hearings to 

offenders who were younger than 26 at the time of their 

crimes and are serving lengthy, non-LWOP sentences. It 

also makes juvenile offenders sentenced to LWOP eligible for 

such hearings. But section 3051 does not afford youth 

offender parole hearings to young-adult offenders like 

appellant, sentenced to LWOP. In his petition, appellant 

argued section 3051’s exclusion of his group of offenders 

violated equal protection. The superior court denied the 

petition.

On appeal, appellant contends he is similarly situated 

to both young-adult offenders serving non-LWOP sentences 

and juvenile offenders serving LWOP sentences. He argues 

that excluding him from section 3051’s scope while including 

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.
3

these other groups is not rationally related to a legitimate 

government interest.

We conclude section 3051 does not violate appellant’s 

equal protection rights. The Legislature rationally could 

have concluded that the combination of their more serious 

offense and their older age at the time of their crimes made 

young-adult offenders serving LWOP sentences more 

culpable and less likely to be rehabilitated than either of the 

other groups to which appellant points. We therefore affirm.

BACKGROUND2

In July 1986, appellant committed murder during the 

commission of a robbery. He was 20 years old at the time he 

committed this crime. A jury later convicted appellant of 

first degree murder and found true the special circumstance 

allegation that the murder was committed in the commission 

of a robbery. The court sentenced appellant to LWOP.

In 2019, appellant petitioned in propria persona for a 

youth offender parole hearing under section 3051. While 

recognizing that as a young-adult offender serving an LWOP

sentence, he was not eligible for such a hearing under 

section 3051, appellant argued his exclusion from relief 

violated his right to equal protection of the laws. Appellant 

contended he was similarly situated to young offenders who 

2 We have granted appellant’s request to take judicial notice 

of the record in his direct appeal, case number B093808, 

including our unpublished decision issued on May 28, 1996.
4

committed first degree murder without special 

circumstances and received non-LWOP sentences, a group 

eligible for youth offender parole hearings under section 

3051. He asserted there was no rational basis for the 

statute’s exclusion of young-adult offenders sentenced to 

LWOP. 

The superior court summarily denied appellant’s

petition, noting he was ineligible for a youth offender parole 

hearing under section 3051 because he was sentenced to 

LWOP. Appellant timely appealed, renewing his contention 

that section 3051 violates his right to equal protection.

DISCUSSION

A. Youth Offender Parole Hearings

The Legislature enacted section 3051 in 2013 in 

response to judicial decisions establishing constitutional 

limits on the length of sentences for juvenile offenders. 

(Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 1; § 3051.) This statute gives eligible 

youth offenders the opportunity for parole in their 15th, 

20th, or 25th year of incarceration depending on the

sentence they are serving for their controlling offense.

3

(§ 3051, subd. (b)(1)-(4).) In enacting section 3051, “the 

Legislature explained that ‘youthfulness both lessens a 

juvenile’s moral culpability and enhances the prospect that, 

3 Under section 3501, the “‘controlling offense’” is “the 

offense or enhancement for which any sentencing court imposed 

the longest term of imprisonment.” (§ 3051, subd. (a)(2)(B).)
5

as a youth matures into an adult and neurological 

development occurs, these individuals can become 

contributing members of society.’” (In re Jenson (2018) 24 

Cal.App.5th 266, 276, quoting Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 1.) 

Initially, section 3051 applied only to juveniles -- those 

who were under 18 years of age at the time they committed 

their crimes -- but the Legislature later extended its 

operation to young-adult offenders who were under 23, and 

then to those who were under 26, at the time of their crimes. 

(Stats. 2013, ch. 312, § 4; Stats. 2015, ch. 471, § 1; Stats. 

2017, ch. 675, § 1.) These amendments reflected the 

Legislature’s recognition that young adults are not yet fully 

matured, and that because of their youth, these offenders 

have a lower degree of culpability and an increased potential 

for rehabilitation when compared with older, fully matured

adult offenders.

4 (See In re Williams (2020) 57 Cal.App.5th 

4 In support of the bill extending the statute’s reach to those 

under 26 years old, the bill’s author stated: “‘Scientific evidence 

on adolescence and young adult development and neuroscience 

shows that certain areas of the brain, particularly those affecting 

judgement and decision-making, do not develop until the early-tomid-20s. Research has shown that the prefrontal cortex doesn’t 

have nearly the functional capacity at age 18 as it does at 25. 

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for a variety of important 

functions of the brain including: attention, complex planning, 

decision making, impulse control, logical thinking, organized 

thinking, personality development, risk management, and 

short-term memory. These functions are highly relevant to 

criminal behavior and culpability.’” (Assem. Com. on Pub. 

Safety, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 1308 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.), 

(Fn. is continued on the next page.)
6

427, 459 (Williams) [“The legislative history suggests the 

Legislature was motivated by dual concerns: that lengthy 

life sentences did not adequately account for, first, the 

diminished culpability of youth, and second, youthful

offenders’ greater potential for rehabilitation and 

maturation”].) Section 3051 does not apply, however, to 

young-adult offenders like appellant, serving LWOP 

sentences.5 (§ 3051, subd. (h).)

B. Analysis 

Appellant argues section 3051 violates equal protection 

under both the California Constitution and the United 

States Constitution by withholding youth offender parole 

hearings from young-adult offenders serving LWOP 

sentences while affording such hearings to juvenile-offenders 

serving LWOP sentences and young-adult offenders serving 

non-LWOP sentences. “We review an equal protection claim 

de novo.” (People v. Laird (2018) 27 Cal.App.5th 458, 469.) 

Our analysis of state and federal equal protection 

claims is similar. (People v. Chatman (2018) 4 Cal.5th 277, 

288 (Chatman).) Absent reliance on a suspect classification,

such as race, or a burden on fundamental rights, we will find 

at 2.) The bill’s author further stated that following section 

3051’s enactment, offenders’ “‘motivation to focus on 

rehabilitation has increased.’” (Assem. Com. on Pub. Safety, 

Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 1308, supra,) at 3.)

5 Section 3051 also excludes other groups of offenders not 

pertinent to this appeal. (§ 3051, subd. (h).)
7

a denial of equal protection “only if there is no rational

relationship between a disparity in treatment and some 

legitimate government purpose.” (Id. at 288-289.) “In order 

to decide whether a statutory distinction is so devoid of even 

minimal rationality that it is unconstitutional as a matter of 

equal protection, we typically ask two questions. 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 ultimately bears a rational 

relationship to a legitimate state purpose.” (Id. at 289.) 

“This so-called ‘rational basis’ scrutiny is exceedingly 

deferential: A law will be upheld as long as a court can 

‘speculate’ any rational reason for the resulting differential 

treatment, regardless of whether the ‘speculation has “a 

foundation in the record,”’ regardless of whether it can be 

‘empirically substantiated,’ and regardless of whether the 

legislature ever ‘articulated’ that reason when enacting the 

law. [Citation.] A court may not ‘second-guess’ the 

‘“wisdom, fairness, or logic”’ of the law, and may invalidate it 

only if the challenger ‘“negative[s] every conceivable basis”’

for the differential treatment.” (People v. Love (2020) 55 

Cal.App.5th 273, 287-288 (Love).)

Appellant contends that young-adult offenders serving 

LWOP sentences are similarly situated to both young-adult 

offenders serving non-LWOP sentences and juvenile 

offenders serving LWOP sentences, and that no rational 
8

basis supports section 3051’s disparate treatment of those 

groups. We disagree. Even assuming appellant’s group is 

similarly situated to the groups afforded a youth parole 

hearing parole under the statute, the statute’s classifications 

have a sufficient rational basis. 

Our colleagues in Division Five recently rejected a 

claim nearly identical to appellant’s. In Williams, supra,

57 Cal.App.5th 427, a young-adult offender serving an 

LWOP sentence similarly argued that section 3051 violated 

equal protection by denying him a youth offender parole 

hearing while affording one for young-adult offenders 

serving non-LWOP sentences.6 The court concluded both 

that those groups were not similarly situated and that a 

rational basis existed for their disparate treatment. 

(Williams, at 459-461.) In finding a sufficient rational basis 

to support section 3051, the court stated: “The Legislature 

has prescribed an LWOP sentence for only a small number of 

crimes. These are the crimes the Legislature deems so 

morally depraved and so injurious as to warrant a sentence 

that carries no hope of release for the criminal and no threat 

of recidivism for society. In excluding LWOP inmates from 

youth offender parole hearings, the Legislature reasonably 

6 The appellant in Williams suggested only “[i]n passing” 

that he was also similarly situated to juveniles sentenced to 

LWOP, and the court disposed of this contention in a brief 

footnote, without reaching whether a rational basis supported 

section 3051’s disparate treatment of the latter group. (Williams, 

supra, 57 Cal.App.5th at 460, fn. 5.)
9

could have decided that youthful offenders who have 

committed such crimes -- even with diminished culpability 

and increased potential for rehabilitation -- are nonetheless 

still sufficiently culpable and sufficiently dangerous to 

justify lifetime incarceration.” (Williams, at 460; accord,

People v. Blackwell (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 166, 202 [“First 

degree special-circumstance murder, viewed in the abstract, 

is perhaps the most serious offense under California law”];

Conservatorship of Hofferber (1980) 28 Cal.3d 161, 172 

[“Variation of the length and conditions of confinement, 

depending on degrees of danger reasonably perceived as to 

special classes of persons, is a valid exercise of state 

power”].) We agree with Williams’s analysis regarding 

section 3051’s disparate treatment of young-adult offenders 

serving LWOP sentences and those serving non-LWOP 

sentences. 

We further conclude that a rational basis supports the 

statute’s distinction between young-adult offenders serving 

LWOP sentences and juvenile offenders serving the same 

sentences. The Legislature rationally could have concluded 

that despite not being fully matured, young-adult offenders

who committed the gravest of crimes, resulting in LWOP 

sentences, were more culpable and less likely to rehabilitate 

than juveniles who committed similar crimes. Indeed, the 

United States Supreme Court has found the distinction 

between juveniles and non-juveniles significant in the realm 

of criminal sentencing. (See, e.g., Roper v. Simmons (2005) 

543 U.S. 551, 574 (Roper) [Eighth Amendment of United 
10

States Constitution prohibits death penalty for those 

younger than 18]; Miller v. Alabama (2012) 567 U.S. 460, 

465 (Miller) [Eighth Amendment prohibits mandatory 

LWOP sentences for those younger than 18].) “[W]hile 

‘[d]rawing the line at 18 years of age is subject . . . to the 

objections always raised against categorical rules . . . [, it] is 

the point where society draws the line for many purposes 

between childhood and adulthood.’” (People v. Argeta (2012) 

210 Cal.App.4th 1478, 1482, quoting Roper, supra, at 574.)

In support of his contention that section 3051 

nevertheless violates equal protection, appellant cites a 

concurrence in In re Jones (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 477

(Jones). In Jones, the Court of Appeal rejected a claim that 

section 1170, subdivision (d)(2), violates equal protection by 

allowing juvenile offenders serving LWOP sentences, but not

young-adult offenders serving those sentences, to petition for 

resentencing. (Jones, supra, at 480.) However, a concurring 

opinion expressed the position that section 3051’s disparate 

treatment of young-adult offenders sentenced to LWOP may 

violate equal protection. (Jones, at 483 (conc. opn. of Pollak, 

J.).) Addressing the disparity between young-adult offenders 

serving LWOP sentences and those serving non-LWOP 

sentences, the concurrence stated: “The presumptive fact 

that the LWOP sentence was based on a more serious 

offense provides no rational basis for the distinction because 

the statute is not designed to determine the degree of 

appropriate punishment but to determine whether the 

individual has outgrown his or her criminality. There is no 
11

reason to conclusively presume that one such person is more 

likely to have satisfactorily matured than the other.” (Id. at 

486.) Turning to the disparity between young-adult 

offenders serving LWOP sentences and juvenile offenders 

serving those sentences, the concurrence stated that a youth 

parole hearing provides only for an evaluation of the 

inmate’s suitability for release, and that “[t]he Legislature 

having recognized that the maturing process normally 

continues to at least 25 years of age, there is little if any 

reason to deny these individuals the opportunity to show 

that they have attained the level of maturity that warrants 

their return to society.” (Ibid.) 

Appellant argues we should follow the reasoning of the 

concurring opinion in Jones. We are unpersuaded. In 

enacting section 3051 and in later extending its reach to 

most young-adult offenders, the Legislature sought to 

address both juveniles’ increased chances of rehabilitation

and their diminished moral culpability. (See In re Jenson, 

supra, 24 Cal.App.5th at 276, quoting Stats. 2013, ch. 312, 

§ 1; Williams, supra, 57 Cal.App.5th at 459; Assem. Com. on 

Pub. Safety, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 1308 (2017-2018 

Reg. Sess.), at 2-3.) The tiered parole eligibility dates the 

statute provides based on the offender’s sentence support 

that the Legislature was not blind to the varying degrees of 

culpability even within the groups of eligible offenders. (See 

§ 3051, subd. (b)(1)-(4).) As discussed, the Legislature 

rationally could have determined that young-adult offenders 

serving LWOP sentences were generally more culpable than 
12

either young adults serving non-LWOP sentences or 

juveniles serving LWOP sentences. 

Moreover, even if the Legislature had focused on the 

potential for rehabilitation alone in enacting section 3051, it 

rationally could have concluded that either their more 

serious offenses or their older age at the time of the crime 

made them more dangerous and less likely to be 

rehabilitated. That this conclusion may be wrong in some 

cases does not render the Legislature’s measure irrational. 

(Johnson v. Department of Justice (2015) 60 Cal.4th 871, 887 

[“‘[w]hen conducting rational basis review, we must accept 

any gross generalizations and rough accommodations that 

the Legislature seems to have made.’ [Citation.] ‘A 

classification is not arbitrary or irrational simply because 

there is an “imperfect fit between means and ends”’”].)

Finally, affording juvenile offenders sentenced to 

mandatory LWOP a meaningful opportunity to obtain 

release is necessary to accommodate the Eighth 

Amendment’s prohibition on mandatory LWOP sentences for 

juveniles. (See Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at 465.) No similar 

requirement applies to young-adult offenders, whom the 

Eighth Amendment does not protect from mandatory LWOP 

sentences. The legislature rationally could have decided to 

afford section 3051’s potential relief to those serving LWOP 

sentences only where constitutionally required. 

We recognize that the Legislature’s judgment could be 

seen as harsh or unfair. It is possible that a young-adult 

offender would prove suitable for release at some point 
13

during his incarceration if given the chance, yet that 

offender will never receive an opportunity to make that 

showing under section 3501, as currently enacted. But we

are not tasked with assessing the wisdom or desirability of 

the Legislature’s choice. Rather, our duty is to determine 

whether its choice had a sufficient rational basis. (See 

Chatman, supra, 4 Cal.5th at 288-289; Love, supra, 

55 Cal.App.5th at 287-288.) We conclude it did. 
14

DISPOSITION

The superior court’s order is affirmed. 

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

 MANELLA, P. J.

We concur:

COLLINS, J.

CURREY, J.