People v. Cordova
Annotate this CaseIn 1973, at the age of 19, defendant was charged with felonies arising from two incidents on successive days, including a home invasion robbery in which, according to the police report, defendant held a woman and her children at gunpoint while threatening violence. In 1995 he was convicted of carrying a concealed dagger and, because he had accumulated four convictions for serious or violent felonies for purposes of the Three Strikes law, Penal Code 667 and 1192.7, he was sentenced to 25-years-to-life. In 2013 he sought resentencing under Penal Code 1170.126, the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2012 (Proposition 36), which entitled him to a reduction in his sentence unless such a reduction would “pose an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety.” The trial court denied his petition. While his appeal was pending, voters adopted the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act (Proposition 47), which substantially narrowed the definition of “unreasonable risk of danger to public safety” as that phrase was “used throughout this Code,” Penal Code 1170.18(c). The court of appeal reversed, holding that the new definition applies to determinations of dangerousness under the Reform Act, and applies to petitions that had already been adjudicated when it was adopted.
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