Opinion ID: 2509094
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Retroactivity Claim

Text: Petitioners argue that amended section 777 is retroactive as applied to them, because it affects probation ordered for section 602 crimes predating Proposition 21. Though triggered by new misconduct committed and litigated after Proposition 21 took effect, the new statutory rules for proving probation violations assertedly relate back to the prior criminal acts for ex post facto purposes. No federal or state authority compels acceptance of this claim. Both this court and the Courts of Appeal have long held that someone who was convicted and sentenced for one crime, and who commits a new crime or other misconduct while either on conditional release or in custody for the original conviction, is subject to new penalties and adverse procedural laws enacted between the time of the two acts. [4] Rejecting ex post facto claims like the one raised here, these cases reason that the new law merely alters the legal consequences of new misconduct (as opposed to prior crimes), and that it therefore has prospective (as opposed to retroactive) effect. [5] Hence, under the foregoing authorities, section 777, as amended by Proposition 21, is not retroactive as to the section 602 crimes supporting the ex post facto claims. Petitioners nonetheless rely on dictum in Johnson v. United States (2000) 529 U.S. 694, 120 S.Ct. 1795, 146 L.Ed.2d 727 ( Johnson ), as persuasive authority for their retroactivity claim. There, a convicted felon, Johnson, committed new misconduct that violated the terms of his federal supervised release, which is not unlike parole. The district court revoked Johnson's supervised release, resentenced him to prison, and ordered him to serve an additional year of supervised release when he left prison. ( Id. at pp. 697-698, 120 S.Ct. 1795.) The statutory source of the last requirement was unclear. In the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, Johnson argued that the additional period of supervised release was not authorized by federal law when he committed the crime for which he was originally convicted. Johnson also claimed that his sentence could not be upheld under a new statute explicitly authorizing additional terms of supervised release. Because the new statute was enacted before the new misconduct but after the original crime, Johnson claimed its application would retroactively increase punishment for that crime in violation of the ex post facto clause. ( Johnson, supra, 529 U.S. 694, 698, 120 S.Ct. 1795, 146 L.Ed.2d 727.) The Sixth Circuit agreed with Johnson that only the new statute permitted an additional period of supervised release of the kind he received. Nevertheless, Johnson's ex post facto challenge to the new statute failed. The appellate court held that because revocation and related provisions of the new statute penalized Johnson for violating the conditions of his initial term of supervised release, they were prospective only and did not impermissibly enhance punishment for the original crime. ( Johnson, supra, 529 U.S. 694, 698-699, 120 S.Ct. 1795, 146 L.Ed.2d 727.) The United States Supreme Court found it unnecessary to reach and resolve this ex post facto question in order to uphold Johnson's sentence. ( Johnson, supra, 529 U.S. 694, 696, 120 S.Ct. 1795, 146 L.Ed.2d 727.) Instead, as reflected in the bulk of the court's opinion, Johnson affirmed the judgment solely on statutory grounds. Although it found no evidence that Congress intended the new statute to cover past crimes like Johnson's, the high court held that an additional period of supervised release was implicitly authorized under prior law in existence when the original crime occurred. ( Id. at pp. 701-713, 120 S.Ct. 1795; see id. at pp. 713-715, 120 S.Ct. 1795 (conc. opn. of Kennedy, J.); id. at p. 715, 120 S.Ct. 1795 (conc. opn. of Thomas, J.); id. at pp. 715-727, 120 S.Ct. 1795 (dis. opn. of Scalia, J.).) In a brief passage divorced from its statutory analysis, Johnson discussed whether applying the new statute would involve retroactivity in the constitutional sense. The high court questioned the Sixth Circuit's view that revocation and related sanctions do not relate to the original offense ( Johnson, supra, 529 U.S. 694, 701, 120 S.Ct. 1795, 146 L.Ed.2d 727), and only constitute punishment for the violation of the conditions of supervised release. ( Id. at p. 700, 120 S.Ct. 1795.) Johnson noted, for instance, that [a]lthough such violations often lead to reimprisonment, the violative conduct need not be criminal and need only be found by a judge under a preponderance of the evidence standard, not by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. ( Ibid. ) In other words, unless postrevocation penalties are deemed punishment for the crime originally proven beyond a reasonable doubt, due process problems might arise insofar as the reasonable doubt standard is not otherwise used to prove new misconduct in a parole or probation revocation matter. ( Ibid., citing Gagnon v. Scarpelli (1973) 411 U.S. 778, 782, 93 S.Ct. 1756, 36 L.Ed.2d 656 [reasonable doubt standard excluded from list of due process protections required to revoke adult probation]; see Morrissey v. Brewer (1972) 408 U.S. 471, 488-489, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 [same as to adult parolees].) As noted, California cases predating Johnson, supra, 529 U.S. 694, 120 S.Ct. 1795, 146 L.Ed.2d 727, have analyzed retroactivity similarly with the Sixth Circuit view questioned therein. Moreover, consistent with the instant Court of Appeal decision, Johnson's suggestion that postrevocation penalties are attribute[d] to the original offense is not binding here. ( Id. at p. 701, 120 S.Ct. 1795.) Such language had no bearing on Johnson's statutory holding or rationale. Nor, as discussed below, do Proposition 21's changes to section 777 extend the maximum term of confinement for prior section 602 crimes, increase the maximum level of restraint, or otherwise trigger penalties like those challenged in Johnson, supra, 529 U.S. 694, 120 S.Ct. 1795, 146 L.Ed.2d 727. [6] Nevertheless, in light of the dictum in Johnson, we will assume, without deciding, that the relevant conduct or reference point for assessing petitioners' ex post facto claim is the pre-Proposition 21 criminal conduct producing the section 602 adjudications, rather than the post-Proposition 21 misconduct triggering the alleged probation violations. Thus, for purposes of argument only, application of Proposition 21 to the present section 777 proceedings `change[s] the legal consequences' of acts committed before the law's effective date. ( Tapia, supra, 53 Cal.3d 282, 288, 279 Cal.Rptr. 592, 807 P.2d 434, quoting Weaver, supra, 450 U.S. 24, 31, 101 S.Ct. 960, 67 L.Ed.2d 17.) We now decide whether those consequences are constitutionally allowed.