In People v. Valenzuela, the Supreme Court yesterday held that a conviction for “willfully promot[ing], further[ing], or assist[ing] in any felonious criminal conduct by members of [a criminal street] gang” — labeled “street terrorism” by the Legislature — cannot stand once the criminal conduct’s categorization is changed from a felony to a misdemeanor under Proposition 47, the 2014 initiative that reduces punishment and allows resentencing for certain crimes.
The court’s 5-2 opinion by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye concluded that the resentencing of the defendant — whose now-downgraded underlying crime had been grand theft of a bicycle — “established the absence of an essential element of the street terrorism offense — felonious criminal conduct.”
Justices Carol Corrigan and Leondra Kruger both filed dissenting opinions. (Justice Corrigan signed Justice Kruger’s dissent, but not vice versa.) Justice Corrigan stated that Proposition 47’s intent was “to reduce punishment for nonserious theft and drug offenses,” but that the “[d]efendant’s crime of participating in a criminal street gang . . . does not constitute a nonserious theft offense.” Justice Kruger wrote that the majority “conflates the grand theft conviction with the conduct underlying it.”
There were dissenters from this decision, but there couldn’t be any disagreement with the majority opinion’s statement, “Proposition 47 has generated many interpretive issues for this court.” The statement is followed by a non-exhaustive list of 10 different Supreme Court opinions in just the last 2 years. And there are more Proposition 47 cases waiting for argument. (See, e.g., here.)
The court reverses the Second District, Division Six, Court of Appeal.