In People v. Conley, the Supreme Court today holds that defendants sentenced under a superseded Three Strikes law and whose judgments were not final as of the date the 2012, voter-approved Three Strikes Reform Act (Proposition 36) took effect are not entitled to automatic resentencing under the Reform Act’s resentencing provision. The unanimous opinion by Justice Leondra Kruger also concludes, however, that those defendants may petition for a recall of their sentences. This means that those defendants’ resentencing depends on a trial court determination whether resentencing would pose an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety.
Justice Kathryn Werdegar signs the court’s opinion, but writes separately to “explain [the] significance” of an earlier retroactivity opinion she authored for the court. Justices Goodwin Liu and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar sign Justice Werdegar’s concurring opinion.
The court affirms the Third District Court of Appeal. The opinion states that the Supreme Court granted review “to resolve a conflict in the Court of Appeal,” but it does not identify any cases it is disapproving. Not being Proposition 36 experts, we’re not sure why that is, but it could be that the conflict exists in unpublished and/or depublished-by-review opinions.