People v. Williams

71 Cal.App.5th 1029

286 Cal.Rptr.3d 804

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Jerry Denton WILLIAMS, Jr., Defendant and Appellant.

A159914

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1, California.

Filed November 23, 2021

Counsel for Defendant and Appellant: Jonathan Soglin, San Francisco, CA, Jeremy Price, under appointment by the Court of Appeal.

Counsel for Plaintiff and Respondent: Matthew Rodriquez, Acting Attorney General, Phillip J. Lindsay, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Sara J. Romano, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Michael G. Lagrama, Deputy Attorney General.

Humes, P.J. Jerry Denton Williams, Jr., was convicted of murder in 1995 and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. He was released on lifetime parole in 2018, but the following year, he was charged with two misdemeanors, and the district attorney filed a petition to revoke his parole. After a contested hearing, the trial court determined that Williams had committed one of the charged offenses and remanded him to prison, the required sanction whenever a court finds that a lifetime parolee has violated parole. ( Pen. Code, § 3000.08, subd. (h) ( section 3000.08(h).)¹

On appeal, Williams claims the trial court erred by refusing to refer the matter to the parole agency for a written report before ruling on the petition. We agree. Under the plain terms of section 1203.2, subdivision (b)(1) ( section 1203.2(b)(1) ), a court is required to receive a parole agency's written report before ruling on a parole revocation petition initiated by a district attorney. There is no implied exception to this requirement when such a petition is filed against a lifetime parolee such as Williams, because the report is not pointless even though a court has no discretion to impose intermediate sanctions.

As Williams concedes, this appeal is moot because he has since been paroled again. (See People v. DeLeon (2017) 3 Cal.5th 640, 645–646, 220 Cal.Rptr.3d 784, 399 P.3d 13 [finding of "parole violation does not constitute a disadvantageous collateral consequence for purposes of assessing mootness"].) Nevertheless, we agree with him that the issue is of continuing public interest and likely to recur yet evade appellate review, and the Attorney General does not argue otherwise. Therefore, we " ‘exercise [our] discretion to decide the issue for the guidance of future proceedings before dismissing the case as moot.’ "² ( People v. Gregerson (2011) 202 Cal.App.4th 306, 321, 135 Cal.Rptr.3d 188 ; see, e.g., DeLeon , at p. 646, 220 Cal.Rptr.3d 784, 399 P.3d 13 ; People v. Castel (2017) 12 Cal.App.5th 1321, 1325, 219 Cal.Rptr.3d 829 ( Castel ).)

I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In 1995, after a jury convicted Williams of one count of first degree murder and found true that he personally used a firearm, he was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.³ He was released from prison in June 2018 and placed on lifetime parole, as required based on his indeterminate sentence for murder. ( § 3000.1, subd. (a)(1).)

Approximately 18 months later, on December 1, 2019, a Rohnert Park police officer pulled over the vehicle in which Williams was a passenger. The officer performed a parole search and found a methamphetamine pipe in Williams's jacket. During the booking process at jail, the officer discovered Williams had a credit card in a different name in his wallet.

Two days later, the Sonoma County District Attorney filed a complaint charging Williams with two misdemeanors, petty theft of lost property and possession of drug paraphernalia.⁴ On the same date, the district attorney also filed a petition to revoke parole under sections 1203.2 and 3000.08, alleging that Williams violated his parole conditions by committing the misdemeanors. The trial court summarily revoked parole and set a parole violation hearing.

On January 9, 2020, the date set for the violation hearing, Williams moved to continue the hearing because the trial court had failed "to refer the petition to the parole agency for a written report to justify the reasons why intermediate sanctions were not employed," as required under section 1203.2(b)(1). After a discussion with counsel at the hearing's outset, the court noted it was "a somewhat novel issue" whether section 1203.2(b)(1) requires "a report from parole regarding intermediate sanctions on a person who is on a lifetime grant of parole." The court decided to go forward with the evidentiary portion of the hearing "so that at the very least should the Court be required under [ section] 3000.08(h) to simply make a finding and then refer the matter to the Board of Parole, that part will be done and we won't have wasted today's calendar call, but should [ section] 1203.2 govern, the Court will not make any findings today with regard to the evidence and the Court will make the appropriate referral. [¶] And then what the Court will do is put the matter over two to three weeks at counsels’ convenience so the Court can do its own research and try to parse this out."

Despite indicating it would not make findings on whether Williams violated his parole conditions, the trial court did so after the evidence was presented. It rejected the petty-theft allegation but found that Williams had possessed drug paraphernalia and therefore violated parole. It then asked for supplemental briefing "to guide this Court on what to do with the next step, whether that is to refer the matter to parole for possible intermediate sanctions or to directly refer the matter back to the Board of Parole[ ]."

In February 2020, after the trial court received the parties’ supplemental briefs, it concluded that section 1203.2(b)(1) did not require it to obtain a written report. Although the court acknowledged the statute's "mandatory shall language" and the absence of "an exception for a lifetime parolee," it concluded that it would be "an absurd result" to have to refer Williams's case to parole for a report. The court explained that if it did so, the resulting report would "be of zero utility because I can't exercise any discretion based on the recommendations contained therein." The court therefore remanded Williams to prison custody "for further proceedings regarding any parole revocation." Williams appealed the order.

A few months later, on June 30, 2020, the Board of Parole Hearings found Williams suitable for parole, and he was released from prison. As far as this court is aware, he is not currently incarcerated.⁵

II.

DISCUSSION

A. The Law Governing Petitions to Revoke Parole

When defendants convicted of certain offenses, including murder, are released from prison, they are placed on parole under the supervision of CDCR. ( § 3000.08, subds. (a), (i) ; Castel , supra , 12 Cal.App.5th at p. 1325, 219 Cal.Rptr.3d 829 ; see § 667.5, subd. (c)(1).) Either the parole agency or the district attorney may file a petition to revoke parole. ( § 1203.2, subds. (a), (b)(1) ; Castel , at p. 1325, 219 Cal.Rptr.3d 829.) "[T]he district attorney generally seeks parole revocation as the result of parolees’ criminal conduct," whereas the parole agency tends to do so as a result of "more minor or technical violations." ( People v. Zamudio (2017) 12 Cal.App.5th 8, 16–17, 218 Cal.Rptr.3d 543 ( Zamudio ).) "Although it is possible for [the parole] agency to file a revocation based on allegations of criminal conduct, by and large the two [types of petitions] involve different degrees of parole violations." ( Castel , supra , 12 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1327–1328, 219 Cal.Rptr.3d 829.) The relevant rules and procedures differ depending on which entity files the petition.

We begin with petitions filed by the parole agency. Upon learning of a potential parole violation supported by good cause, the parole agency "may impose additional and appropriate conditions of supervision, including rehabilitation and treatment services and appropriate incentives for compliance, and impose immediate, structured, and intermediate sanctions for parole violations, including flash incarceration in a city or a county jail." ( § 3000.08, subd. (d).) But if the parole agency concludes "following application of its assessment processes ... that intermediate sanctions up to and including flash incarceration are not appropriate," it must file a petition to revoke parole in the trial court. ( § 3000.08, subd. (f).)

Every revocation petition filed by the parole agency must "include a written report that contains additional information regarding the petition, including the relevant terms and conditions of parole, the circumstances of the alleged underlying violation, the history and background of the parolee, and any recommendations." ( § 3000.08, subd. (f) ; Cal. Rules of Court, rule 4.541(c).)⁶ In addition, the report "must include the reasons for that agency's determination that intermediate sanctions without court intervention as authorized by Penal Code section[ ] 3000.08(f) ... are inappropriate responses to the alleged violations." ( Rule 4.541(e).) "Pursuant to ... section 3015, [CDCR] has developed a parole violation decisionmaking instrument (PVDMI), a form used to determine what sanctions should be imposed for a parole violation, and whether a petition to revoke parole should be filed."⁷ ( People v. Osorio (2015) 235 Cal.App.4th 1408, 1412, 185 Cal.Rptr.3d 881 ( Osorio ), disapproved on another ground by DeLeon , supra , 3 Cal.5th at p. 646, 220 Cal.Rptr.3d 784, 399 P.3d 13.) The explanation of why intermediate sanctions are inappropriate must "be ‘individualized to the particular parolee, as opposed to a generic statement.’ " ( Perlas , supra , 47 Cal.App.5th at pp. 829, 832–833, 261 Cal.Rptr.3d 234 [holding these requirements were satisfied in proceeding against lifetime parolee].)

A revocation petition filed by the district attorney, on the other hand, may be submitted without an accompanying report by the parole agency. "[B]y its terms section 3000.08 applies only to parole revocation petitions filed by the ‘supervising parole...