People v. Williams
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Williams, convicted of murder in 1995 and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison, was released on lifetime parole in 2018. In 2019, he was charged with two misdemeanors. The district attorney filed a petition to revoke his parole. After a contested hearing, the trial court rejected a petty-theft allegation but found that Williams had possessed drug paraphernalia and remanded him to prison, the required sanction whenever a court finds that a lifetime parolee has violated parole, (Pen. Code 3000.08(h).
The court of appeal agreed that the appeal was moot because Williams had been paroled again but found the issue to be of continuing public interest and likely to recur yet evade appellate review. The trial court erred by refusing to refer the matter to the parole agency for a written report before ruling on the petition, section 1203.2(b)(1) 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.
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