People v. Bankston
No. S044739
People v. Barrera
No. S103358
People v. Chhuon
No. S105403
California Supreme Court
Racial Justice Act cases
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In three cases, the California Supreme Court called for additional briefing on identical questions regarding California’s so-called Racial Justice Act. The facts of the cases and their case numbers are listed below. The sponsors of the 2000 law claimed that its purpose was to eliminate the influence of race from the criminal justice system, but the law’s actual provisions operate to defeat justice and to require discrimination on the basis of race. A subsequent amendment made the law apply retroactively to “errors” that were perfectly legal at the time of the trial. In these three cases, all tried before enactment of the law, the California Supreme Court asked about the provisions regarding (1) whether an “error” under the law would require reversal even if was it unlikely to have had any effect on the trial, and (2) whether the law’s provision barring the death penalty on retrial could operate even if the error was harmless. CJLF joined these cases to make two arguments. First, California’s law on when an error requires reversal is in the state Constitution, and the Legislature has no authority to alter it. Second, the law on which murder defendants are eligible for the death penalty is in an initiative statute approved by the people, and the California Constitution does not permit the Legislature to make exceptions or exclusions from that definition without the people’s approval. The contrary provisions of the act are unconstitutional.
People v. Bankston
Bankston is a Los Angeles gang member who shot two people to death, shot and wounded a third person, and shot at a fourth person. All this carnage was merely because two of the victims were members of rival gangs and two were accompanying a rival gang member. Bankston later threatened the witnesses against him. He was sentenced to death for the two murders and prison time for the other crimes.
People v. Barrera
Barrera regularly abused two of his children, Lupita and Ernesto, eventually killing them both. He beat two-year-old Lupita every day and threw her against the wall more than once. In the final beating, he threw her against the wall again, knocking her unconscious. He refused to take her to the hospital, and she died later that day. He took her to the mountains to bury her and poured acid on her body. Barrera also beat five-year-old Ernesto every day. He also deliberately starved Ernesto while feeding the numerous other children. In the final beating, he kicked Ernesto in the head, knocking his head into the wall. Ernesto died later that night. Barrera took his body to the Angeles National Forest to bury him, but he was caught by deputy sheriffs. He was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances of torture and multiple murder, and he was sentenced to death.
People v. Chhuon
Chhuon was a member of a Sacramento street gang called the Tiny Rascals Gang. He and two other gangsters committed a home invasion robbery, in which they shot to death a 74-year-old man and his son and also shot the son’s wife in the hip. All the victims were unarmed. Later he committed a drive-by shooting in Pomona, killing one person and attempting to kill another. He had previously been convicted of five other murders.
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Hamm v. Smith
No. 24-872
United States Supreme Court
Death penalty: Intellectual disability—multiple tests
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U.S. Supreme Court case regarding how to decide whether a convicted murderer is intellectually disabled, and thus exempt from the death penalty, when multiple IQ tests have been done.
Joseph Smith was released early from his prison sentence for robbery on a community custody program. Two days later he and and an accomplice murdered Durk Van Dam in order to rob him, brutally beating him and cutting him with a power saw. Smith voluntarily confessed to the crime. At the time of his trial, mental retardation (as it was then known) was a mitigating circumstance but not a complete exemption from the death penalty. Smith's lawyer hired an expert who administered an IQ test and testified at trial. The jury decided that the mitigating circumstances, including mental condition, did not outweigh the aggravating circumstances, and the trial judge agreed. Smith was sentenced to death.
Between Smith's school days, the trial, and post-conviction litigation, Smith was tested for IQ five times, with scores of 75, 74, 72, 78, and 74. An IQ of 70 or less is generally regarded as one of the three requirements for the diagnosis of intellectual disability. The U.S. District Court and the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that because 70 is within the 95% confidence interval for four of the tests (although just barely for three of them), that was sufficient to move on to the second and third requirements of the diagnosis. They further held that the inmate's experts were more convincing than the state's and overturned the sentence.
After the U.S. Supreme Court took up the case, CJLF filed a "friend of the court" brief argument that the lower federal court had failed to adequately consider the well-established principle of aggregation. That principle tells us that repeated measures taken together are more precise than the margins of error of the individual tests. There is no consensus on how to combine the scores, but our brief does the math in several different ways to illustrate that they all lead to the same conclusion. The probability that Smith actually has a true IQ less than 70 is remote. This is combined with the fact that he has already presented his mental condition—however it might be labelled—as a mitigating circumstance at trial and it was found to be outweighed by the aggravating facts of this brutal crime and his criminal record. Under these circumstances, the state is justified in proceeding to execute the judgment.
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Jessica M. v. California Dept. of Corrections & Rehabilitation
No. B343930
2nd District Court of Appeal
Sentencing: Youth parole & PC 667.6
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California Court of Appeal case challenging a statute that makes young adult rapists eligible for parole far earlier than a voter initiative provides. CJLF is representing a victim of crime and a victim services organization challenging this law.
Jessica M., then 23, was waiting for a bus in Los Angeles when Sergio Linares, then 25, abducted her at knife point, forced her into his car, took her to an isolated location and committed numerous sex crimes against her over an extended period. He could have been sentenced to 136-to-life for these crimes, but the prosecution agreed to a plea bargain that guaranteed he would be locked up for at least 42 years under the law at the time. This sentence was imposed under a law that had been extensively rewritten in a 2006 initiative called Jessica's Law. Under the California Constitution and the terms of the initiative, it cannot be amended by the Legislature except by a bill that receives a two-thirds vote in both houses. Even so, the Legislature in 2017 extended so-called "youth offender parole" to criminals who commit crimes before their 26th birthday, even murderers and rapists. The bill making this amendment did not receive the required two-thirds vote. Under this statute, Linares received a parole hearing after only 15 years, little more than one-third of the time promised at sentencing. To oppose the unjustly early release, Jessica M. had to attend the hearing and relive the trauma she had suffered years earlier. This kind of revictimization is committed regularly by the Board of Parole Hearings, depriving victims of crime of the finality and the peace of mind they were guaranteed by Jessica's Law and by Marsy's Law in 2008.
In 2024, Jessica M. and Crime Survivors, Inc., a victim service organization, filed suit to stop these illegally early hearings. Kathleen Cady, then a private attorney representing victims, and CJLF provided representation without fee in the trial court. The trial judge denied relief. After Ms. Cady returned to the district attorney's office, CJLF took on sole representation. We appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Second District in Los Angeles. Our brief argues that the sentencing law is an initiative statute within the meaning of the California Constitution, that the Legislature illegally amended it, and that victims and victim service organizations have standing to challenge it. The case is pending in the Court of Appeal and will likely be decided in late 2025 or early 2026.
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Office of the State Public Defender v. Bonta
No. S284496
California Supreme Court
Death penalty: Standing to challenge
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California Supreme Court case in which the State Public Defender and several organizations challenge the validity of the California death penalty. After the court asked for briefing regarding standing and necessary parties, CJLF filed a friend of the court brief to address these issues. Our brief argues that none of the petitioners have individual or organizational standing because none of them face a death sentence or have any members facing a death sentence. Public interest standing should not apply here, given that the individuals who do have standing have attorneys provided at public expense and can make the challenge themselves. In addition, given the importance of the issue and the extensive fact-finding required, the case should include an opponent who actually supports capital punishment. The named respondent is the present Attorney General, who is an opponent of the death penalty. If he is the only respondent, then collusive litigation in which he abolishes the death penalty by "taking a dive" with an inadequate defense is a real danger. The case is presently on hold pending the Supreme Court's disposition of another case on standing.
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In re Kowalczyk
No. S277910
California Supreme Court
Bail: Denial of bail & ability to pay
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California Supreme Court case to review (1) which California constitutional provision governs the denial of bail in noncapital cases — article I, section 12, subdivisions (b) and (c), or article I, section 28, subdivision (f)(3), or both? and (2) whether a superior court can ever set pretrial bail above an arrestee’s ability to pay.
Kowalczyk was charged with vandalism, identity theft, and theft. He had a 100-page rap sheet, with 64 prior convictions, with extensive evidence of having failed to abide by probation conditions, plus 4 DUI convictions. His bail was originally set at $75,000, and eventually a judge denied bail altogether. Kowalczyk filed a habeas petition challenging the denial of bail. While his petition was pending, his case was resolved and he was released from custody. The Court of Appeal dismissed his petition as moot. The California Supreme Court granted Kowalczyk’s petition for review and transferred the case back to the Court of Appeal with directions to vacate the dismissal order and to issue an opinion addressing which constitutional provision governs the denial of bail in noncapital cases.
CJLF joined the case to argue that both article I, section 12, subdivisions (b) and (c), and article I, section 28, subdivision (f)(3), are reconcilable and both constitutional provisions govern the denial of bail in noncapital cases. Furthermore, if money bail is necessary under the circumstances, bail can be set in an amount that may be above an arrestee’s ability to pay when it is necessary to further the state’s compelling interests in adequately assuring an arrestee’s appearance in court and in protecting victim and public safety and there are no other nonmonetary conditions of release that can reasonably protect those interests.
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