In People v. Superior Court (Lara), the Supreme Court today holds that Proposition 57 — the 2016 initiative that requires prosecutors to obtain juvenile court permission before charging minors with crimes in adult court — applies retroactively “to all juveniles charged directly in adult court whose judgment was not final at the time it was enacted.” The court’s unanimous opinion is by Justice Ming Chin.
Finding the Court of Appeal reached the right result for the wrong reason, the Supreme Court both affirms the judgment of the Fourth District, Division Two, and disapproves that court’s opinion. The court agrees with and extensively quotes a 2017 decision by the Fourth District, Division Three. It also disapproves seven other Court of Appeal 2017 opinions in which review has been granted: four from the Fifth District and one each from the Sixth District, the Fourth District, Division One, and the First District, Division Four.
Before a relatively recent rule change, all of today’s disapproved opinions would have been depublished by the grant of review and there wouldn’t have been a need to disapprove them. Also depublished — and uncitable — by the grant of review would have been the opinion with which the Supreme Court today agrees and quotes.