In re Douglas
Annotate this CasePetitioner Tyrone Douglas was convicted of two nonviolent felonies and a violent felony. The trial court chose one of the nonviolent felonies as the primary offense, imposed sentence for that offense, imposed but stayed sentence on the other nonviolent felony offense, and imposed a consecutive term for the violent felony. After Douglas’s sentencing, California voters passed Proposition 57, the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016, which added section 32 to article I of the California Constitution. Douglas petitioned or habeas relief, challenging a regulation adopted by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) that limited the parole-consideration benefit of section 32(a)(1) to inmates who were convicted only of nonviolent felonies, thus excluding from early parole consideration anyone convicted of one or more violent felonies plus one or more nonviolent felonies (“mixed- offense inmates”). In support of his challenge to the CDCR regulation, Douglas cited In re Mohammad, 42 Cal.App.5th 719, review granted February 19, 2020, S259999 (2019), which held that because the unambiguous text of section 32(a)(1) provided for early parole consideration for inmates convicted of nonviolent felony offenses, regardless of whether they were also convicted of a violent offense, a mixed-offense inmate is eligible for early parole consideration under section 32(a)(1). Although the Court of Appeal found the language of section 32(a)(1) supported an interpretation that mixed-offense inmates were entitled to early parole consideration, such an interpretation would lead to absurd results the voters did not intend. Accordingly, the Court concluded that a person convicted of a violent felony offense and sentenced to state prison was ineligible for early parole consideration under section 32(a)(1). The petition for writ of habeas corpus was denied.
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