BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 327
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Date of Hearing: July 3, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
SB 327 (Yee) - As Amended: April 2, 2013
Policy Committee: Public Safety
Vote: 5-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill allows a writ of habeas corpus to be prosecuted if
competent expert testimony relating to human trafficking was not
presented at trial for a crime in which the defendant was a
victim of human trafficking. Specifically, this bill:
1)Adds "human trafficking and its effects" to provisions of law
that specify a writ of habeas corpus may be prosecuted on the
basis of "intimate partner battering (IPB) and its effects."
2)Provides that expert testimony relating to human trafficking
and its effects presented to the trier of fact does not
preclude granting a habeas corpus petition if that expert
testimony was not competent or substantial.
3)Authorizes the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) to report to the
governor, "from time to time," the names of persons in state
prison who should be released based on evidence the person was
a victim of human trafficking at the time of the offense.
4)Requires BPH in reviewing a prisoner's suitability for parole
to give "great weight" to information the inmate was a human
trafficking victim at the time of the offense.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Annual GF costs to state trial courts, potentially in excess
of $100,000, to the extent this bill results in evidentiary
hearings. At a cost of about $4,000 per day, 15 two-day
hearings would cost about $100,000.
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2)Annual GF costs to state trial courts, potentially in excess
of $150,000, to the extent this bill results in new trials.
For example, 10 two-week trials would cost about $400,000.
3)Annual GF costs to the BPH, in excess of $150,000 for
additional investigations, training regarding recognition of
human traffic victimization, and potentially the development
of regulations. For example the equivalent of two
personnel-years would exceed $200,000.
4)Potential annual GF savings, should this bill result in
shorter prison terms. For each year of incarceration avoided,
the savings would be about $24,000. It is not clear, however,
that given the absence of definitional case law regarding
human trafficking and evidentiary standards, in addition to
the existence of habeas corpus law that already allow such
petitions, that this bill would result in abbreviated prison
terms.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The author contends that human trafficking victims
should be accorded the same habeas corpus protections afforded
victims of IPB.
According to the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking,
"Victims of human trafficking do not always self-identify as
human trafficking victims and therefore fail to present
relevant evidence at trial or to the court. Human trafficking
victims are often imprisoned for crimes that they were forced
to commit by their traffickers.
"This bill would expand the opportunity to victims of human
trafficking to petition for a writ of habeas corpus to present
substantial evidence which if the evidence would have been
presented it would have made a difference in the judgment or
sentencing of their case."
2)Current law :
a) Provides that in a criminal action expert testimony is
admissible regarding intimate partner battering and its
effects, including the nature and effect of physical,
emotional, or mental abuse on the behavior of victims of
domestic violence. (Evidence Code 1107.)
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b) Provides that every person unlawfully imprisoned or
restrained of his or her liberty, under any pretense
whatever, may prosecute a writ of habeas corpus to inquire
into the cause of such imprisonment or restraint. (Penal
Code 1473(a).)
c) Requires the Board of Prison Terms (BPT), in considering
an inmate's suitability for parole, to consider any
evidence that the prisoner had experienced intimate partner
battering and was convicted of the offense prior to this
defense being recognized. (Penal Code § 4801(b).)
3)It is not clear that this bill is necessary or workable .
Unlike cases involving domestic violence or IPB, this bill
does not specify what types of offenses qualify a victim of
human trafficking for the proposed relief. It is also not
clear that human trafficking victims have been convicted of
serious offenses for which they are serving lengthy sentences
requiring a writ of habeas.
As noted in the Assembly Public Safety analysis, this bill
authorizes a specific writ of habeas for human trafficking
victims, without addressing the admissibility of expert
testimony regarding human trafficking and its effects during
the trial phase. Evidence Code Section 1107 requires that
expert testimony regarding IPB must be relevant to the
criminal action and the qualifications of the expert witness
must be established prior to admission as evidence. At the
time Evidence Code 1107 became law, the parameters of
battering evidence and its relevance was established in case
law and studies. "Human trafficking and its effects" does not
have a definition based in case law, nor are there studies or
recognized experts in this field. There are no procedural
safeguards in this bill requiring relevance of the evidence or
that an expert is qualified to testify about human trafficking
and its effects, yet this bill allows a writ of habeas and
favorable treatment at a BPH hearing when this evidence was
not presented at the defendant's trial.
Moreover, in 2012, Proposition 35 modified many provisions of
California's human trafficking laws. Proposition 35 includes
the crime of pimping and pandering as a violation of human
trafficking laws if accomplished by force, fear, fraud,
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deceit, coercion, violence, duress, menace, or threat of
unlawful injury to the victim. Therefore, if a person engaged
in prostitution kills his or her pimp, the current statute
authorizing a writ of habeas based on IPB would arguably
already apply. The effects of IPB have been defined as "a
series of common characteristics that appear in women [or men]
who are abused physically and psychologically over an extended
period of time by the dominant male [or female] figure in
their lives." [Humphrey, supra, 13 Cal.4th at pp. 1083-1084;
People v. Romero (1994) 8 Cal.4th 728, 735.]
4)Opposition . The California District Attorneys Association
states, "Existing law, Penal Code Section 1473, provides that
every person unlawfully imprisoned or retrained of his
liberty, under any pretense whatever, may prosecute a writ of
habeas corpus, to inquire into the cause of such imprisonment
or restraint. As such, this bill is unnecessary. Further,
the provision of law that SB 327 amends was created for a
discrete situation unique to the issue of IPB and was amended
in the wake of a statute and case law specifically allowing
the introduction of expert testimony on IPB, then known as
battered women's syndrome. Proponents of this special writ
had identified a finite group of defendants who had been
convicted of serious offenses without the benefit of expert
testimony on IPB and its effects. SB 327 attempts to shoehorn
a solution in search of a problem into an existing code
section that bears little connection to the issue you have
identified.
"SB 327 additionally gives a person who may have previously
filed an unsuccessful writ of habeas corpus based on human
trafficking the ability to use the same evidence to attempt to
gain release from incarceration a second time via parole
proceedings. We feel it is inappropriate to direct BPH
operations legislatively by expressing a bias toward evidence
of human trafficking, especially if such evidence was
unconvincing to a court in a habeas proceeding."
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081