California v. Marsh

Defendant Daniel Marsh, one month shy of his 16th birthday, stalked a Davis neighborhood at night and randomly selected the home of two victims to satisfy a long-standing (and oft-expressed) desire to kill, after which he mutilated their bodies. He was found guilty by jury of two counts of first degree murder (finding that he personally used a deadly weapon in each instance) and sustained allegations of three special circumstances. Defendant was found sane at the time of the offenses. After making an individualized assessment of the appropriateness of the sentence, the trial court imposed an indeterminate life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years. The case was not fully briefed until July 2017. On appeal, defendant argued Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012) and Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), which respectively prohibited the mandatory punishment of life without parole for minors for any offense, or the death penalty under any circumstances, even for minors who commit homicide. Both cases applied in the context of a sanity determination, requiring the resurrection of the doctrine abrogated under California law in which an “irresistible impulse” test was applied to determine a defendant’s sanity. Defendant argued on appeal to the Court of Appeal that the sanity phase had to be reversed and retried with instructions on this rejected standard. In the published portion of its opinion, the Court of Appeal noted that in supplemental briefing, defendant had “deeply disturbed mental functioning,” that did not of itself align with the criteria absolving a defendant on the ground of insanity. The judgment of the criminal court was conditionally reversed and the matter remanded to the juvenile court with direction to hold a juvenile transfer hearing to determine defendant’s suitability for treatment in juvenile or criminal court within 90 days of the issuance of the Court of Appeals’ remittitur. If the juvenile court determined that defendant was the proper subject of criminal proceedings, it shall reinstate the criminal judgment. If the juvenile court finds that it would not have transferred defendant to a court of criminal jurisdiction, then it shall deem defendant’s convictions to be juvenile adjudications and conduct a dispositional hearing within its usual time frame. View "California v. Marsh" on Justia Law