Court Opinion

ID: 9746077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 13:56:05.672735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:24.226669
License: Public Domain

SIMS, Acting P. J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in parts I, II, and III of the majority opinion.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion, in part IV, that the sentence in this case does not constitute cruel or unusual punishment. In my view, defendant’s sentence of 25 years to life on count 2, plus a two-year consecutive sentence on count 3, constitutes cruel or unusual punishment under the California Constitution.
Article 1, section 17 of the California Constitution provides in pertinent part, “Cruel or unusual punishment may not be inflicted . . . .”
Construing this provision, the California Supreme Court in In re Lynch (1972) 8 Cal.3d 410 [105 Cal.Rptr. 217, 503 P.2d 921], said, “the power to prescribe penalties [must] “be exercised within the limits of civilized standards.” ’ [Citations.] ‘The State, even as it punishes, must treat its members with respect for their intrinsic worth as human beings.’ [Citations.] Punishment which is so excessive as to transgress those limits and deny that worth cannot be tolerated, [f] We conclude that in California a punishment may violate article 1, section 6 [now section 17] of the Constitution if, although not cruel or unusual in its method, it is so disproportionate to the crime for which it is inflicted that it shocks the conscience and offends fundamental notions of human dignity.” (Id. at p. 424, fn. omitted.)1
*712In determining whether a sentence is cruel or unusual, it is appropriate to examine whether the penalty is grossly disproportionate to the crime committed and also whether the punishment fits the offender. (In re Lynch, supra, 8 Cal.3d at pp. 431, 437.)
The offenses for which defendant was convicted in this case—failure to register—are obviously nonviolent offenses. Before 1995, failure to register was a misdemeanor offense. (See former Pen. Code, § 290, subd. (g)(1); Stats. 1993, ch. 595, § 8, p. 3134.) Even now, violation of section 290 (without prior “strikes”) is punishable by the lowest triad of punishments: 16 months, or two or three years. (Pen. Code, § 290, subd. (g)(2).)
The majority make much of defendant’s record of offenses and justify his sentence primarily on this ground. However, defendant committed his most recent sex offenses some 23 years ago, in 1981. He committed his most recent felony offense in 1990—more than nine years before he failed to register. Defendant’s prior felony offenses are old and stale and his recent conduct—exemplified by nine years of felony-free life—indicates that he had turned the comer on his felonious past.
In considering the nature of the offender, the evidence on this record (including the probation report) is uncontradicted that defendant was suffering from AIDS, that he became homeless, that he was living on the street, and that eventually he moved in with his sister-in-law for several months. The reason that defendant tendered for failing to register—that he was dying of AIDS and was consumed by it—is uncontradicted on this record and is entirely plausible.
This is a pathetic case. This is not a case in which defendant has done anything to justify imposition of a term of 25 years to life in state prison, let alone the draconian two-year consecutive term (on top of the 25-year-to-life term) for failing to register on his birthday.
It is no answer to say that we are protecting society from contamination by one with AIDS (and the majority do not so argue). We do not, should not, and constitutionally cannot incarcerate persons in state prison because they have a disease like AIDS. (Robinson v. California (1962) 370 U.S. 660, 666-667 [8 L.Ed.2d 758, 82 S.Ct. 1417] [statute making narcotics addiction a criminal offense violated cmel and unusual punishment clause].)
What are we doing sending this 52-year-old dying man to state prison for 27 years to life? What has become of our society? Why has “compassion” become a dirty word in the law? There can be no justice without a fair measure of compassion in an appropriate case. I think that, some years from *713now, law professors and law students will read this case and will ask, “What on earth were they thinking?”
Considering this record as a whole, the sentence imposed in this case is so disproportionate to the crime for which it is inflicted that it shocks my conscience and offends my fundamental notions of human dignity. (In re Lynch, supra, 8 Cal.3d 410, 424.) Because defendant’s sentence was unconstitutional, the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to strike defendant’s strikes, as defendant contends, because striking the strikes would have allowed the court to impose a constitutional sentence.
I would affirm defendant’s convictions and remand to the trial court for resentencing.
A petition for a rehearing was denied November 17, 2004, and appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied January 26, 2005. George, C. J., did not participate therein.

Article I, section 24 of the California Constitution was amended by Proposition 115 in 1990 to provide in part: “In criminal cases the rights of a defendant to . . . not suffer the imposition of cruel or unusual punishment, shall be construed by the courts in this state in a manner consistent with the Constitution of the United States.” In Raven v. Deukmejian (1990) 52 Cal.3d 336 [276 Cal.Rptr. 326, 801 P.2d 1077], in an opinion by Chief Justice Lucas, the Supreme Court concluded that this portion of Proposition 115 “contemplates such a far-reaching change in our governmental framework as to amount to a qualitative constitutional revision, an undertaking beyond the reach of the initiative process.” (Id. at p. 341.) The court *712therefore held that “new article I, section 24, represents an invalid revision of the California Constitution.” (Id. at p. 355.)