California v. Superior Court (Ferraro)
Annotate this CaseIn 1990, real parties in interest Donald R. Ferraro and Roger Hunter pled guilty to second degree murder based on the same incident. In 2019, they each filed a petition for resentencing under the then-newly enacted Penal Code section 1170.95. Section 1170.95 was enacted as part of Senate Bill No. 1437 (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015), which took effect January 1, 2019. The legislation limited the circumstances under which a defendant could be found guilty of murder under the felony-murder rule or the natural and probable consequences doctrine. The legislation applied retroactively, allowing qualifying petitioners to have their murder convictions vacated and be resentenced. The District Attorney for Butte County filed motions to strike the petitions for resentencing, arguing in part that Senate Bill No. 1437 was an unconstitutional amendment of two prior initiative measures: Proposition 7 (as approved by voters, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 7, 1978)) and Proposition 115 (as approved by voters, Primary Elec. (June 5, 1990)). The respondent superior court denied the motions. The District Attorney filed separate writ petitions to the Court of Appeals to challenge the superior court’s rulings. The Court of Appeals concluded Senate Bill 1437 was not an invalid amendment of either Proposition 7 or 115 because the legislation did not add to or take away from any provision in either initiative. Therefore, the Court denied the District Attorney's petitions.
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