BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 1134 Hearing Date: April 5, 2016
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|Author: |Leno |
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|Version: |February 18, 2016 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|MK |
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Subject: Habeas Corpus: New Evidence: Motion to Vacate
Judgment: Indemnity
HISTORY
Source: California Innocence Project
Northern California Innocence Project
Loyola Project for the Innocent
American Civil Liberties Union
Prior Legislation:SB 694 (Leno) held in Assembly Appropriations
2015
SB 1058 (Leno) Chapter 623, Stats. 2014
SB 618 (Leno) Chapter 800, Stats. 2013
AB 1593(Ma) Chapter 809, Stats. 2012
Support: A New Path; A New Way of Life Re-Entry Project;
California Attorneys for Criminal Justice; California
Catholic Conference; California Civil Liberties
Advocacy; Friends Committee on Legislation of
California; John Van de Kamp, former California
Attorney General; Judge Ladoris H. Cordell (Ret.);
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San
Francisco Bay Area; Ella Baker Center for Human
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Rights; Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Opposition:None known
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to allow the granting of a habeas
corpus petition based on new evidence which "is credible,
material and presented without substantial delay, and of such
decisive force and value that it would have more likely than not
changed the outcome at trial."
Existing law provides that every person unlawfully imprisoned or
restrained of his or her liberty, under any pretense, may
prosecute a writ of habeas corpus to inquire into the cause of
such imprisonment or restraint. (Penal Code § 1473(a).)
Existing law states that a writ of habeas corpus may be
prosecuted for, but not limited to, the following reasons:
False evidence that is substantially material or
probative on the issue of guilt, or punishment was
introduced against a person at any hearing or trial
relating to his incarceration; or
False physical evidence believed by a person to be
factual, material or probative on the issue of guilt, which
was known by the person at the time of entering a plea of
guilty and which was a material factor directly related to
the plea of guilty by the person. (Penal Code § 1473 (b))
Existing law provides that any allegation that the prosecution
knew or should have known of the false nature of the evidence is
immaterial to the prosecution of a writ of habeas corpus.
(Penal Code § 1473(c).)
Existing law states that nothing in this section shall be
construed as limiting the grounds for which a writ of habeas
corpus may be prosecuted or as precluding the use of any other
remedies. (Penal Code § 1473(d).)
This bill would add, as grounds for a writ of habeas corpus,
when new evidence exists that is credible, material, presented
without substantial delay, and of such decisive force and value
that it would have more likely than not changed the outcome at
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trial.
This bill provides that for purposes of this section "new
evidence" means evidence that has been discovered after trial,
that could not have been discovered prior to trial but the
exercise of due diligence, and is admissible and not merely
cumulative, corroborative, collateral, or impeaching.
Existing law provides that if the district attorney or Attorney
General stipulates to or does not contest the factual
allegations underlying one or more of the grounds for granting a
writ of habeas corpus or a motion to vacate a judgment, the
facts underlying the bases for the court's ruling or order shall
be binding on the attorney General, the factfinder and the
California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board.
(Penal Code § 1485.5 (a))
Existing law provides that the express factual findings made by
the court, including credibility determinations, in considering
a petition for a habeas corpus, a motion to vacate or an
application for a certificate of factual innocence shall be
binding on the Attorney General, the factfinder, and the
California Victim Compensation and Government Claims board.
(Penal Code § 1485.5 (c))
This bill clarifies that the above is true in both contested and
uncontested proceedings.
Existing law provides that in a contested proceeding, if a court
grants a writ of habeas corpus concerning a person who is
unlawfully imprisoned or restrained, the court vacates a
judgment on the basis of new evidence concerning a person who is
no longer unlawfully imprisoned or restrained and if the court
finds that the new evidence on the petition points unerringly to
innocence, that finding shall be binding on the California Crime
Victims Compensation and Government Claims board for acclaim
presented to the board, and upon application by the person, the
board shall, without a hearing, recommend to the Legislature
that an appropriation be made and a claim paid. (Penal Code §
148.55(a))
This bill provides instead that in a contested proceeding, if
the court has granted a writ of habeas corpus, or when, the
court vacates a judgement, and if the court has found the that
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the person is factually innocent, that finding shall be binding
on the California Victim Compensation and Government Claims
Board for a claim presented to the board, and upon application
by the person, the board shall, without a hearing, recommend to
the Legislature that an appropriation be made and a claim paid.
Existing law if the court grants a writ of habeas corpus
concerning a person who is unlawfully imprisoned or restrained
on any ground other than new evidence that points unerringly to
innocence or actual innocence, the petitioner may move for a
finding of innocence by a preponderance of evidence that the
crime with which he or she was charged was either not committed
at all, or if committed, was not by him or her. (Penal Code §
148.55(b))
This bill instead provides that in a contested or uncontested
proceeding, if the court grants a writ of habeas corpus and did
not find the person factually innocent in the habeas corpus
proceedings, the petition may move for a finding of innocence by
a preponderance of the evidence that the crime with which he or
she was charged was either not committed at all, or if
committed, was not by him or her.
Existing law provides that for the purposes of this section,
"new evidence" means evidence that is not available or known at
the time of trial that completely undermines the prosecution
case and points unerringly to innocence. (Penal Code §
148.55(g))
This bill deletes the above provision.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the past several years this Committee has scrutinized
legislation referred to its jurisdiction for any potential
impact on prison overcrowding. Mindful of the United States
Supreme Court ruling and federal court orders relating to the
state's ability to provide a constitutional level of health care
to its inmate population and the related issue of prison
overcrowding, this Committee has applied its "ROCA" policy as a
content-neutral, provisional measure necessary to ensure that
the Legislature does not erode progress in reducing prison
overcrowding.
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On February 10, 2014, the federal court ordered California to
reduce its in-state adult institution population to 137.5% of
design capacity by February 28, 2016, as follows:
143% of design bed capacity by June 30, 2014;
141.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2015; and,
137.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2016.
In December of 2015 the administration reported that as "of
December 9, 2015, 112,510 inmates were housed in the State's 34
adult institutions, which amounts to 136.0% of design bed
capacity, and 5,264 inmates were housed in out-of-state
facilities. The current population is 1,212 inmates below the
final court-ordered population benchmark of 137.5% of design bed
capacity, and has been under that benchmark since February
2015." (Defendants' December 2015 Status Report in Response to
February 10, 2014 Order, 2:90-cv-00520 KJM DAD PC, 3-Judge
Court, Coleman v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (fn. omitted).) One
year ago, 115,826 inmates were housed in the State's 34 adult
institutions, which amounted to 140.0% of design bed capacity,
and 8,864 inmates were housed in out-of-state facilities.
(Defendants' December 2014 Status Report in Response to February
10, 2014 Order, 2:90-cv-00520 KJM DAD PC, 3-Judge Court, Coleman
v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (fn. omitted).)
While significant gains have been made in reducing the prison
population, the state must stabilize these advances and
demonstrate to the federal court that California has in place
the "durable solution" to prison overcrowding "consistently
demanded" by the court. (Opinion Re: Order Granting in Part and
Denying in Part Defendants' Request For Extension of December
31, 2013 Deadline, NO. 2:90-cv-0520 LKK DAD (PC), 3-Judge Court,
Coleman v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (2-10-14). The Committee's
consideration of bills that may impact the prison population
therefore will be informed by the following questions:
Whether a proposal erodes a measure which has contributed
to reducing the prison population;
Whether a proposal addresses a major area of public safety
or criminal activity for which there is no other
reasonable, appropriate remedy;
Whether a proposal addresses a crime which is directly
dangerous to the physical safety of others for which there
is no other reasonably appropriate sanction;
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Whether a proposal corrects a constitutional problem or
legislative drafting error; and
Whether a proposal proposes penalties which are
proportionate, and cannot be achieved through any other
reasonably appropriate remedy.
COMMENTS
1. Need for This Bill
According to the author:
Under existing California law, an inmate who has been
convicted of committing a crime for which he or she claims
that s/he has new evidence that points to innocence may file a
petition for writ of habeas corpus. The burden for proving
that newly discovered evidence entitles an individual to a new
trial is not currently defined by statute, but has evolved
from appellate court and California Supreme Court opinions.
In order to prevail on a new evidence claim, a petitioner must
undermine the prosecution's entire case and "point unerringly
to innocence with evidence no reasonable jury could reject"
(In re Lawley (2008) 42 Cal.4th 1231, 1239). The California
Supreme Court has stated that this standard is very high, much
higher than the preponderance of the evidence standard that
governs other habeas claims. (Ibid.)
In fact, this standard is so high that it is nearly impossible
to meet absent DNA evidence, which exists only in a tiny
portion of prosecutions and exonerations. For example, if a
petitioner has newly discovered evidence that completely
undermines all evidence of guilt-in other words, if the
evidence completely disproves every piece of evidence in the
prosecution's original case-and shows that the original jury
would therefore definitely not have convicted, but the new
evidence does not "point unerringly to innocence," the
petitioner will not have met the standard and will have no
chance at a new trial. Thus, someone who would likely never
have been convicted if the newly discovered evidence had been
available in their original trial is almost guaranteed to
remain in prison under the status quo in California.
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The proposed new standard in SB 1134 addresses this anomaly.
Our criminal justice system was built on the understanding
that even innocent people cannot always affirmatively prove
innocence, which is why the burden is on the prosecution to
prove guilt when a charge is brought to trial, and absent
evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, innocence is
presumed. The new standard contained in this bill ensures
that innocent men and women do not remain in prison even after
new evidence shows that a conviction would not have occurred
had it been available.
SB 1134 seeks to bring California's innocence standard into
line with the vast majority of other states' standards,
forty-three in total, and to bring it closer in line with
other postconviction standards for relief such as ineffective
assistance of counsel, or prosecutorial misconduct, and not so
unreasonably high.
As a result of the onerously high standard governing new
evidence claims, individuals often choose to re-package
evidence of innocence into other types of claims, such as
infective assistance of counsel for example. The impact of
this is not just a dearth in case law on new evidence claims
but it also means that some exonerees may never receive legal
recognition of their innocence. To illustrate, consider the
case of Maurice Caldwell. Caldwell was convicted of murder in
1991 based on the mistaken identification of a single
eyewitness. Investigators later established that it was
scientifically impossible for the witness to have identified
the perpetrator from her vantage point, thus rendering his
conviction invalid. It was not for the fact that there was
new evidence available, however, that the conviction was
overturned. It was a claim of ineffective assistance of
counsel that ultimately ended Caldwell's wrongful
incarceration.
This misleading and often farcical repackaging of legitimate
claims of innocence into other unrelated claims, such as
ineffective assistance of counsel, is the direct result of the
impossibly high standard for new evidence as it currently
stands. California judges are forced to determine not whether
the person's new evidence shows that he is innocent, but
whether the new evidence shows his attorney was ineffective,
even when the attorney could not have known about the
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evidence, as in the case of DNA. The effect of the law is
that courts must decide whether a person's conviction should
be reversed based on something other than their claim of
innocence, and innocent people are often denied because their
claims (understandably) do not fit into a category they were
not intended to.
2. Habeas Corpus
Habeas corpus, also known as "the Great Writ", is a process
guaranteed by both the federal and state Constitutions to obtain
prompt judicial relief from illegal restraint. The functions of
the writ is set forth in Penal Code section 1473(a): "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." A writ of habeas corpus may be prosecuted for, but
not limited to, the following reasons:
False evidence that is substantially material or
probative on the issue of guilt, or punishment was
introduced against a person at any hearing or trial
relating to his incarceration;
False physical evidence believed by a person to be
factual, material or probative on the issue of guilt, which
was known by the person at the time of entering a plea of
guilty and which was a material factor directly related to
the plea of guilty by the person; and,
Any allegation that the prosecution knew or should have
known of the false nature of the evidence is immaterial to
the prosecution of a writ of habeas corpus.
3. Standard
In California, there is no codified standard of proof for a writ
of habeas corpus brought on the basis of new evidence. The
current standard is based on case law. In re Lawley (2008) 42
Cal. 4th 1231, 1239 found that newly discovered evidence "must
undermine the entire prosecution case and point unerringly to
innocence or reduced culpability;" and "if 'a reasonable jury
could have rejected the evidence presented, a petition has not
satisfied his burden." This bill would instead set the standard
for the granting of a writ of habeas corpus as " new evidence
exists that is credible, material, presented without substantial
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delay, and of such decisive force and value that it would have
more likely than not changed the outcome at trial." As noted in
the author's statement, this standard will make California's
postconviction standard consistent with 43 other states.
According to the February 3, 2016 report of National Registry of
Exonerations at the University of Michigan Law School there were
149 exonerations nationwide in 2015, five of which were in
California. That was five exonerations under a standard that is
higher than the standard in most other states, it is unclear
how many others were denied a hearing because they did not meet
the standard who would be eligible under this standard to have
their habeas corpus petition heard.
4. Victims Compensation Board
This bill also makes conforming changes, making it clear if
there is a finding of factual innocence by a court then the
Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board shall make a
recommendation for an appropriation to the Legislature.
5. Support
In support former Attorney General John Van de Kamp states:
To win a claim of factual innocence under current
California case law, an individual must "undermine the
entire prosecution case and point unerringly to
innocence" with evidence that no "reasonable jury would
reject." This standard is the most difficult in the
country and is so impossibly high that it functions as
a barrier to wrongfully convicted individuals seeking
justice in our criminal justice system. SB 1334 amends
California Penal Code to incorporate a standard of
proof in line with the standards in 43 other states.
SB 1134 will allow courts to grant relief to innocent
people who have new evidence that is so strong that it
"would likely than not changed the outcome at trial."
The "more likely that not" standard proposed by the
bill is clear and is a standard familiar to the courts.
It is still a very high standard, but a fair one. To
prevail with a claim of factual innocence under the
bill, an individual must still have new evidence that
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"is credible, material, presented without substantial
delay," and "admissible" and that "could not have been
discovered prior to the trial by the exercise of due
diligence."
The bill provides a vital claim to innocent individuals
who do not have another recourse under other habeas
claims such as false testimony, Brady violations or
ineffective assistance of counsel. Under the current
standard, those innocent individuals have little chance
of proving their innocence, so remain wrongfully
imprisoned. SB 1134 gives these individuals a fair
chance to prove their innocence and the criminal
justice system a chance to rectify the wrongful
imprisonment of innocent individuals.
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