People v. Marquez

Defendant was sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) for special circumstance murder. While defendant's original appeal was pending, the United States Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama, (2012) 567 U.S. 460, which held that mandatory LWOP sentences for juvenile homicide offenders violated the Eighth Amendment. In defendant's first appeal, the Court of Appeal reversed the judgment and remanded to the trial court to reconsider defendant's LWOP sentence after applying the individualized sentencing criteria set forth in Miller. After the trial court again imposed an LWOP sentence, defendant appealed once more. In supplemental briefing, defendant argued that Proposition 57, the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016 applied retroactively to his case. In the published portion of this opinion, the Court of Appeal held that the suitability hearing provisions of Proposition 57 are not retroactive. View "People v. Marquez" on Justia Law