California v. Hernandez
Annotate this CaseDefendant Jose Arturo Hernandez was convicted of two counts of attempted murder and five other charges and sentenced to 61 years to life in prison for crimes he committed when he was 16 years old.He argued on appeal that his trial attorney was ineffective because: (1) his attorney did not move to suppress his confession; and (2) his attorney did not object to his sentence as violating the constitutional proscription against cruel and unusual punishment. Upon review of the trial court record, the Court of Appeal found no ineffective assistance in counsel’s failure to move to suppress the confession because such a motion would have had no merit. However, that under recent decisions from the United States and California Supreme Courts, defendant’s sentence was unconstitutional. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded this case for resentencing consistent with those decisions.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.