Opinion ID: 2509094
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Calder/Punishment Claim

Text: Petitioners also allude to the third Calder category, which concerns ex post facto laws inflicting greater punishment than what was authorized when the crime occurred. ( Calder, supra, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386, 390, 1 L.Ed. 648 (opn. of Chase, J.).) The basic contention is that because section 777(c)'s new preponderance and evidentiary standards increase the chance that the juvenile court will find a probation violation and order a more restrictive placement, Proposition 21 retroactively increases punishment for the original section 602 crimes. First and foremost, we reject the suggestion that Proposition 21's new procedures for modifying disposition under section 777 are themselves punishment. As we have seen, an ex post facto violation does not occur simply because a postcrime law withdraws substantial procedural rights in a criminal case. ( Collins, supra, 497 U.S. 37, 45-46, 110 S.Ct. 2715, 111 L.Ed.2d 30.) Even new methods for determining a criminal sentence do not necessarily involve punishment in the ex post facto sense. ( Lynce, supra, 519 U.S. 433, 447, fn. 17, 117 S.Ct. 891, 137 L.Ed.2d 63, following Dobbert v. Florida (1977) 432 U.S. 282, 292-294, 97 S.Ct. 2290, 53 L.Ed.2d 344 [final decision on death penalty moved from jury to trial court, subject to automatic appellate review].) Otherwise, the high court would have retained the expansive principles that Collins, supra, 497 U.S. 37, 110 S.Ct. 2715, 111 L.Ed.2d 30, disapproved. There also would have been no need to revitalize the fourth Calder category in Carmell, supra, 529 U.S. 513, 120 S.Ct. 1620, 146 L.Ed.2d 577. If punishment increased whenever new standards of proof and evidence disadvantaged a criminal offender, the third Calder category would always apply, and the fourth category would be superfluous. Contrary to what petitioners imply, the ex post facto clause regulates increases in the ` quantum of punishment.' ( Lynce, supra, 519 U.S. 433, 443, 117 S.Ct. 891, 137 L.Ed.2d 63, quoting Morales, supra, 514 U.S. 499, 508, 115 S.Ct. 1597, 131 L.Ed.2d 588, italics added.) Although no universal definition exists ( Morales, at p. 509, 115 S.Ct. 1597), this concept appears limited to substantive measures, standards, and formulas affecting the time spent incarcerated for an adjudicated crime. For example, an ex post facto violation occurs where laws setting the length of a prison sentence are revised after the crime to contain either a longer mandatory minimum term ( Lindsey v. Washington (1937) 301 U.S. 397, 400, 57 S.Ct. 797, 81 L.Ed. 1182), or a higher presumptive sentencing range ( Miller, supra, 482 U.S. 423, 432-433, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 96 L.Ed.2d 351). Impermissible increases in punishment also have been found where a new postcrime formula for earning gain-time credits postpones an inmate's eligibility for early release ( Weaver, supra, 450 U.S. 24, 33, 101 S.Ct. 960, 67 L.Ed.2d 17), or where retroactive cancellation of overcrowding credits requires reimprisonment of an inmate who has been freed. ( Lynce, supra, 519 U.S. at p. 445, 117 S.Ct. 891.) However, not every amendment having any conceivable risk of lengthening the expected term of confinement raises ex post facto concerns. ( Morales, supra, 514 U.S. 499, 508, 115 S.Ct. 1597, 131 L.Ed.2d 588.) In Morales, a California law allowed the parole board, after holding an initial hearing, to defer subsequent parole suitability hearings up to three years for inmates convicted of multiple homicides, provided it found parole was not reasonably likely to occur sooner. ( Id. at p. 503, 115 S.Ct. 1597.) Finding no retroactive increase in punishment, the high court emphasized that there had been no change in the applicable indeterminate term, in the formula for earning sentence reduction credits, or in the standards for determining either the initial date of parole eligibility or the prisoner's suitability for parole. ( Id. at p. 507, 115 S.Ct. 1597.) The court also observed that the statute, by its own terms, affected a small class of prisoners not likely to be paroled, and allowed the board to shorten the time between hearings based on the particular circumstances. ( Id. at pp. 510-513, 115 S.Ct. 1597.) At bottom, no ex post facto violation occurred because the risk of longer confinement was speculative and attenuated ( id. at p. 509, 115 S.Ct. 1597), and because the prisoner's release date was essentially unaffected by the postcrime change. ( Id. at p. 513, 115 S.Ct. 1597; cf. Garner v. Jones (2000) 529 U.S. 244, 255, 120 S.Ct. 1362, 146 L.Ed.2d 236 [concluding that new Georgia rule allowing up to eight years between parole hearings for life prisoners did not necessarily increase confinement, and remanding to determine whether rule created significant risk of greater punishment as applied in that case].) Here, any penal consequences attributable to petitioners' section 602 crimes are unaffected by the section 777 procedures that Proposition 21 introduced. ( Morales, supra, 514 U.S. 499, 513, 115 S.Ct. 1597, 131 L.Ed.2d 588.) A brief look at the juvenile court's dispositional role under section 602 and section 777 illustrates the point. For 20 years, the express purpose of the statutory scheme has been to rehabilitate juvenile offenders while both protecting the public and holding the person accountable for his misconduct. (§ 202, added by Stats.1984, ch. 756, § 2, p. 2726.) Thus, under both pre- and post-Proposition 21 law, a crime alleged and sustained beyond a reasonable doubt under section 602 triggers broad discretion in the juvenile court to order probation under various conditions, to keep the probationer in the physical custody of a parent or guardian, or to declare the probationer a court ward and to place him in one of several kinds of juvenile facilities. (See §§ 202, subd. (e), 725, 726, 727, 730, 731, 734.) Whenever a section 602 ward and probationer is removed from the custody of a parent or guardian, the order must specify that physical confinement cannot exceed the maximum term of imprisonment that could be imposed upon an adult convicted of the same crime. (See §§ 726, subd. (c), 731, subd. (b).) The juvenile court may aggregate terms of confinement for multiple section 602 counts or petitions, including previously sustained petitions. (§ 726, subd. (c); see Eddie M., supra, 31 Cal.4th 480, 488-489, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 119, 73 P.3d 1115.) Before it was amended by Proposition 21, section 777 could be used in different ways against section 602 wards and probationers. Specifically, between 1986 and 2000, officials could (1) allege a probation violation not amounting to a crime, and seek a more restrictive placement than the one already in effect, and/or (2) allege a probation violation amounting to a crime (i.e., a new section 602 offense), and seek the full range of consequences attending a new section 602 petition. (§ 777, former subd. (a)(2), as amended by Stats.1986, ch. 757, § 5, p. 2478; see Eddie M., supra, 31 Cal.4th 480, 489-490, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 119, 73 P.3d 1115.) [8] In either case, jurisdictional hearings held under former section 777, as amended in 1986, followed the same procedures as section 602 jurisdictional hearings, including proof beyond a reasonable doubt supported by evidence admissible in criminal trials. (See Arthur N., supra, 16 Cal.3d 226, 240, 127 Cal.Rptr. 641, 545 P.2d 1345; Cal. Rules of Court, former rule 1392(d)(1), adopted eff. July 1, 1977.) In 2000, of course, Proposition 21 deleted the reference to probation violations amounting to . . . crime[s] from section 777(a)(2), and adopted the procedures challenged here. (See § 777(c).) Proposition 21 thereby ended use of the statute to plead and prove probation violations as crimes, and to increase the maximum period of confinement for crimes previously adjudicated under section 602. ( Eddie M., supra, 31 Cal.4th 480, 486, 501, 507, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 119, 73 P.3d 1115.) However, no other drastic change in the court's dispositional role occurred when Proposition 21 amended section 777. After finding a probation violation and considering any other evidence bearing on disposition, the juvenile court crafts an order that promotes rehabilitation, public safety, and accountability under section 202  aims the voters explicitly reaffirmed under Proposition 21. ( Eddie M., supra, 31 Cal.4th 480, 500, 507, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 119, 73 P.3d 1115.) In addition, the court selects the appropriate disposition from the same array of statutory options available both before Proposition 21 took effect and when the section 602 offense was adjudicated. Thus, under post-Proposition 21 law, the dispositional order in a section 777 proceeding may make little or no change in probationary terms and placement. (See, e.g., In re Emiliano M. (2003) 31 Cal.4th 510, 513-514, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 140, 73 P.3d 1132.) Or it may involve a more restrictive placement of the kind that has long been used, and could have been employed, upon appropriate findings, at the outset of the case. (See, e.g., Eddie M., supra, 31 Cal.4th at pp. 492-493, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 119, 73 P.3d 1115.) [9] Furthermore, both before and after Proposition 21, a change in placement under section 777 need not follow any particular order, including from the least to the most restrictive. The juvenile court also does not necessarily abuse its discretion by ordering the most restrictive placement under section 777 before other options have been tried. ( Eddie M., supra, 31 Cal.4th at pp. 507, 508, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 119, 73 P.3d 1115.) Similar principles have long guided section 602 dispositional proceedings. ( Eddie M., supra, at pp. 488, 507, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 119, 73 P.3d 1115.) [10] In sum, the challenged amendments merely enhance the juvenile court's opportunity to exercise authority and discretion similar to what it possessed in both the original section 602 proceeding and under section 777, in its pre-Proposition 21 form. Proposition 21 created no mandatory term or level of confinement for probation violations found under section 777(a)(2). Nor do such proceedings increase either the maximum length of confinement or the maximum level of restraint over those initially permissible for the section 602 crime itself. Accordingly, we see no significant risk that Proposition 21's new rules for conducting section 777 hearings will increase punishment for petitioners' pre-Proposition 21 crimes. ( Garner v. Jones, supra, 529 U.S. 244, 255, 120 S.Ct. 1362, 146 L.Ed.2d 236.) Petitioners insist that under Arthur N., supra, 16 Cal.3d 226, 127 Cal.Rptr. 641, 545 P.2d 1345, the juvenile court aggravates punishment whenever it orders a more restrictive placement under section 777(a)(2). We are asked to find an ex post facto violation insofar as Proposition 21 increases the chance of such an outcome for probation violators whose section 602 crimes predated the statutory change. We reject the claim. In Arthur N., supra, 16 Cal.3d 226, 229-230, 127 Cal.Rptr. 641, 545 P.2d 1345, the juvenile court sustained a robbery allegation under the pre-1986 version of section 777, and committed the section 602 ward and probationer to the Youth Authority. This court found a due process violation insofar as the robbery was not adjudicated under a reasonable doubt standard of proof. We reasoned that no juvenile could be confined for violating the criminal law `on proof insufficient to convict him were he an adult.' ( Arthur N., supra, 16 Cal.3d at p. 240, 127 Cal.Rptr. 641, 545 P.2d 1345, quoting Winship, supra, 397 U.S. 358, 367, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368.) In the process, Arthur N. declined to analogize section 777 hearings to proceedings in which adult probation violations are found by a preponderance of the evidence, and in which revocation triggers the prison sentence imposed for the original conviction. Arthur N. explained that while the adult whose probation is revoked may not be subjected to any greater punishment than that provided for the original offense, a juvenile adjudged a [section 602 ward may be] . . . subjected to increasingly severe and restrictive custody which exceeds that which would have been permissible initially. ( Arthur N., supra, 16 Cal.3d at p. 237, 127 Cal.Rptr. 641, 545 P.2d 1345.) The Arthur N. court was similarly concerned ( id. at p. 239, 127 Cal.Rptr. 641, 545 P.2d 1345) that the length of confinement under section 777 was not proportionate to the original section 602 crime. However, as Eddie M., supra, 31 Cal.4th 480, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 119, 73 P.3d 1115, explained in rejecting Arthur N.'s due process rule concerning the reasonable doubt standard, subsequent changes in statutory law have undermined the reasoning of that case. Arthur N., supra, 16 Cal.3d 226, 237, 127 Cal.Rptr. 641, 545 P.2d 1345, based its concern with greater punishment on the assumption that new crimes could be pled and proved under section 777  a practice ended by Proposition 21. In a related vein, the rule requiring the juvenile court to calculate the maximum period of confinement for the original section 602 offense was added, and then refined, shortly after Arthur N. was decided. (§ 726, subd. (c), added by Stats.1976, ch. 1071, § 29, p. 4827, and amended by Stats.1977, ch. 1238, § 1, p. 4158, eff. Oct. 1, 1977.) This feature ensures that confinement is proportionate to the original crime, and prevents section 777 from having any contrary effect. ( Eddie M., supra, 31 Cal.4th at pp. 506, 508, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 119, 73 P.3d 1115.) Furthermore, the statutory scheme no longer requires that placement alternatives run from the least to the most restrictive, and that they be ratcheted up gradually based on the person's behavior at earlier levels. The juvenile court has broad discretion at disposition to implement the priorities in section 202  a statute codified after Arthur N. was decided. We cannot assume that any new placement ordered under section 777 necessarily exceeds what was permissible before. ( Eddie M., supra, 31 Cal.4th at pp. 488, 507, 508, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 119, 73 P.3d 1115.) For these reasons, we find no ex post facto increase in punishment for petitioners' section 602 crimes.