Supreme Court of California

Defendant-juveniles' convictions of special circumstance murder and sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole are reversed in part and remanded for resentencing, where: 1) defendants were 17 years old and were sentenced under California Penal Code section 190.5; 2) section 190.5(b), properly construed, confers discretion on a trial court to sentence a 16- or 17-year-old juvenile convicted of special circumstance murder to life without parole or to 25 years to life, with no presumption in favor of life without parole; 3) Miller v. Alabama requires a trial court, in exercising its sentencing discretion, to consider the distinctive attributes of youth and how those attributes diminish the penological justifications for imposing the harshest sentences on juvenile offenders before imposing life without parole on a juvenile offender; 4) because the sentencing regime created by section 190.5(b) authorizes and indeed requires consideration of the distinctive attributes of youth highlighted in Miller, there is no constitutional infirmity with section 190.5(b) once it is understood not to impose a presumption in favor of life without parole; and 5) because the two defendants here were sentenced before Miller in accordance with the interpretation of section 190.5(b) prevailing at the time, the matter must be remanded for resentencing in light of the principles set forth in Miller and this opinion.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/05/2014
• Published 05/05/2014

Judges

• LIU

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel