Summary
Sacramento Superior Court case challenging the constitutionality of a law that authorizes parole eligibility during a prisoner's 25th year of incarceration for prisoners who were convicted of aggravated murder prior to turning 18 years old and sentenced to LWOP. CJLF filed suit on behalf of Laura Peterson, whose father, Alan Peterson, was murdered in 1996 by then 16-year-old Lawrence Cottle. Under California's 1990 Proposition 115, state judges were given the discretion to sentence juvenile homicide offenders to either 25 years to life or life without the possibility of parole. Cottle was sentenced under that law to life without the possibility of parole. In 2017, the California Legislature passed and former Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 394 into law. Subject to few exceptions, that law authorized parole eligibility during the 25th year of incarceration for prisoners, like Cottle, who were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole prior to turning 18 years old. Cottle received a parole hearing under this law and was found suitable for parole. Proposition 115 specified that its statutory provisions could only be amended by a two-thirds vote of both houses of the California Legislature. Senate Bill 394 was not passed by the required two-thirds vote in the State Assembly. CJLF filed a lawsuit on Laura Peterson's behalf to prevent Cottle from being released on parole. Judge Boulware Eurie of the Sacramento Superior Court agreed that Senate Bill 394 unconstitutionally amended Proposition 115 without the required legislative majority, and issued a Writ of Prohibition preventing the Board of Parole Hearings and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from releasing Cottle on parole.
