Court Opinion

ID: 9401956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-14 19:03:56.57784+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:56.416665
License: Public Domain

Filed 6/14/23 P. v. Fitzgerald CA4/3

                      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for
publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication
or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

                IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                                     FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                                DIVISION THREE

 THE PEOPLE,

      Plaintiff and Respondent,                                        G061078

           v.                                                          (Super. Ct. No. 98NF3130)

 GEORGE EDWARD FITZGERALD III,                                         OPINION

      Defendant and Appellant.

                   Appeal from a postconviction order of the Superior Court of Orange
County, Kimberly Menninger, Judge. Reversed and remanded.
                   William Paul Melcher, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for
Defendant and Appellant.
                   Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney
General, Charles C. Ragland, Assistant Attorney General, Collette C. Cavalier, Lynne G.
McGinnis and Kathryn Kirschbaum, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and
Respondent.
                                *             *                 *
              George Edward Fitzgerald III appeals from the trial court’s summary denial
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of his petition for resentencing under Penal Code section 1170.95, now renumbered as
section 1172.6. (Stats. 2022, ch. 58, § 10.) As the Attorney General concedes, the
Supreme Court’s decision in People v. Strong (2022) 13 Cal.5th 698 (Strong) requires
reversal and remand for the trial court to issue an order to show cause (OSC) on
Fitzgerald’s resentencing petition and to conduct a further hearing. At the hearing, the
court must determine under current law following enactment of Senate Bill No. 1437
(2017-2018 Reg. Sess.) and related legislation, whether Fitzgerald was a “major
participant” in the robbery in which his codefendant killed a convenience store clerk.
(§ 189, subd. (e)(3); § 1172.6, subd. (d); see Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 3, amending § 189 to
specify new felony murder requirements.) If so, the court must also determine whether
Fitzgerald acted with “reckless indifference to human life” before the clerk’s death.
(§ 189, subd. (e)(3).) In making these determinations, the trial court shall employ the
Supreme Court’s multi-factor analyses set forth in People v. Banks (2015) 61 Cal.4th 788
(Banks) and in People v. Clark (2016) 63 Cal.4th 522 (Clark) on the respective questions.
              Thus, we reverse the trial court’s order and remand the matter to allow the
court to issue the requisite OSC and hold a hearing on the resentencing petition.
(§ 1172.6, subds. (c), (d).) Both defense and the prosecution may elect to present “new
or additional evidence” at the hearing, and the prosecution bears the burden of proof
under the beyond a reasonable doubt standard to prove Fitzgerald is guilty of murder
under the current law. (Id., subd. (d)(3); § 189, subd. (e).)

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              All further undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

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                   FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
               We limit our discussion of the factual background because at the hearing on
remand it will fall to the trial court, as the trier of fact, to “review all the relevant
evidence, evaluate and resolve contradictions, and make determinations as to credibility,
all under the reasonable doubt standard . . . .” (People v. Clements (2022) 75 Cal.App.5th
276, 298.)
               Suffice it to say that in a trial separate from his codefendant, Ciron
Springfield, in June 2000 a jury found Fitzgerald guilty of the murder of James Soo Jun
during a failed attempt to rob a convenience store. Fitzgerald was 18 years old at the
time of the offense. As relevant here, the jury found true a felony murder special
circumstance allegation (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)), albeit under standards predating Banks
and Clark. (See People v. Fitzgerald (Mar. 19, 2003, G027799) [nonpub. opn.]
(Fitzgerald I).) The finding required a statutory sentence of life imprisonment without
parole (ibid.), but based on factors including Fitzgerald’s age in comparison to his
codefendant’s age and their relative culpability, as well as Fitzgerald’s personal
characteristics and his state of mind at the time of the crime, the trial court reduced
Fitzgerald’s sentence on the murder count to 25 years to life pursuant to People v. Dillon
(1983) 34 Cal.3d 441 (Dillon). This court upheld Fitzgerald’s conviction and sentence on
appeal. (Fitzgerald I, supra, G027799.)
               In December 2019, Fitzgerald filed a section 1172.6 petition in which he
attested he could not be convicted of murder under current law because he was not the
actual killer, he did not harbor an intent to kill while aiding and abetting or assisting the
killer in any way, nor was he a major participant in the underlying attempted robbery, nor
did he act with reckless indifference to human life in committing the crime. (People v.
Fitzgerald (Jan. 27, 2021, G058833) [nonpub. opn.].) The trial court summarily denied
the petition, finding Fitzgerald did not make a prima facie showing he might be entitled
to resentencing. Fitzgerald appealed the order; we reversed and remanded with directions

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for the trial court to “ascertain the scope and effect of the original trial court’s Dillon
ruling and sentencing choice,” including determining whether the original court’s
decision “indicate[s] Fitzgerald did not act with the requisite indifference to life or as a
major participant in the crime.” (Ibid.)
              On remand, the trial court again denied Fitzgerald’s petition without issuing
an OSC or ordering an evidentiary hearing, based on its assessment that the original trial
court did not intend in making its Dillon findings to vitiate the jury’s felony murder
special circumstance findings that Fitzgerald was a major participant in the attempted
robbery and acted with reckless indifference to human life, “‘aware that (his) acts
involve[d] a grave risk of death to an innocent human being.’” Fitzgerald then filed this
appeal.

                                        DISCUSSION
              While the appeal was pending, the Supreme Court decided Strong. In
Strong, the high court held that a jury’s true finding on a robbery-murder special
circumstance that predates Banks and Clark does not render a section 1172.6 petitioner
ineligible for relief as a matter of law because the finding was made “under outdated
legal standards.” (Strong, supra, 13 Cal.5th at p. 720.) Thus, as applicable here, special
circumstance “[f]indings issued by a jury before Banks and Clark do not preclude a
defendant from making out a prima facie case” under section 1172.6. (Strong, at p. 710.)
With no evidence in the record that undermines Fitzgerald’s prima facie claims as a
matter of law, he is entitled to the hearing on his resentencing petition provided for in
section 1172.6, subdivision (d).
              Strong also held that a trial or appellate court’s postconviction
determination that substantial evidence supports the special circumstance finding under
the guidance established in Banks and Clark does not render the petitioner ineligible as a
matter of law because that determination “would not involve a determination beyond a

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reasonable doubt that [the current legal standards] were met.” (Strong, supra, 13 Cal.5th
at p. 720.) Because the trial court must now, under Strong, make its own reasonable
doubt inquiry as the trier of fact, the original trial court’s Dillon finding becomes moot.
              At the hearing on remand, Fitzgerald may argue the effect of evidence
already in the record bearing on Dillon factors, including his relative youth, and/or
present new or additional evidence (§ 1172.6, subd. (d)) bearing on those factors to the
extent they are relevant to the trial court’s Banks and Clark analyses. (Cf., e.g., People v.
Oliver (2023) 90 Cal.App.5th 466, 486 [collecting recent cases finding relevance in “a
defendant’s youth when conducting an analysis of major-participant and
reckless-indifference findings,” even for defendants over the age of majority].)

                                      DISPOSITION
              The trial court’s order denying Fitzgerald’s resentencing petition is
reversed. The matter is remanded, and the trial court is directed to issue an OSC as to
why relief should not be granted on the petition, and to set and conduct a hearing on the
resentencing petition in accordance with section 1172.6, subdivision (d).

                                                  GOETHALS, J.

WE CONCUR:

O’LEARY, P. J.

SANCHEZ, J.

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