People v. Cervantes
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Penal Code section 1170.95 applies only to murder convictions. Defendant argued that the failure to include voluntary manslaughter convictions in section 1170.95 violates his constitutional rights to equal protection and substantive due process.
The Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of the section 1170.95 petition, holding that defendant's exclusion from section 1170.95 does not violate his right to equal protection. The court held that the decision not to include manslaughter in section 1170.95 falls within the Legislature's "line-drawing" authority as a rational choice that is not constitutionally prohibited. The court also rejected defendant's claim that he was denied substantive due process where there was a rational relationship between the objectives of the legislative enactment and the methods chosen to achieve those objectives. In this case, the legislative goal was to eliminate the sentencing disparity caused by the felony murder rule, and that goal was properly achieved by the section 1170.95 petition procedure to vacate those murder convictions.
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