People v. CarmonyPeople v. Carmony
In this case, defendant Keith Ishmeal Carmony pled guilty to one count for failure to register in violation of
I.
Due to a 1983 conviction for oral copulation by force or fear, or with a minor under age 14 (
The criminal complaint charged Carmony with one count of willful failure to register in violation of
Carmony‘s first strike arose from a 1983 conviction3 for oral copulation by force or fear, or with a minor under age 14. (
Carmony‘s second and third strikes arose from two 1993 convictions for assault with a deadly weapon or by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury. (
Carmony ultimately pled guilty to the one count of failure to register (
The probation department reported that Carmony was 40 years old at the time of the offense and married. He had a nine-year-old daughter from a previous common law relationship who resided with her mother. According to the department, Carmony had a long history of alcohol and drug abuse, and alcohol had apparently contributed to all of his prior offenses. Although Carmony had never participated in a substance abuse treatment program, he had attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. And, prior to committing the current offense, he had obtained a job and performed well, but had quit after only a short time.
The department also noted that Carmony had received written notice of his obligation to register on several occasions, including when he registered on September 23—less than one month before his birthday. His parole agent also allegedly called him on his birthday to remind him of his duty to register. Carmony, however, disputed this.
Finally, the department reported that Carmony had multiple juvenile adjudications and had committed numerous parole violations. His adult criminal record was also lengthy and included numerous other convictions in addition to his three strike offenses and his two prior convictions for failure to register. Specifically, Carmony suffered: (1) two separate convictions for second degree burglary in 1977 and 1978 (
At the end of its presentence report, the probation department suggested that the court could appropriately strike one of Carmony‘s prior serious and/or violent felony convictions in light of Cluff, supra, 87 Cal.App.4th 991, 105 Cal.Rptr.2d 80. But the court would have to strike two of these convictions in order to make a difference in his sentence. Accordingly, the department recommended that Carmony receive a sentence of 26 years to life.
After receiving the report, Carmony moved to dismiss two of his strikes pursuant to People v. Superior Court (Romero) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497, 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 789, 917 P.2d 628 (Romero) and Cluff, supra, 87 Cal.App.4th 991, 105 Cal.Rptr.2d 80. The trial court declined. According to the court, Carmony had a lengthy criminal record “with a yearly visit to state prison most of his adult life.” The court also noted that Carmony could not plausibly claim that he did not know about his duty to register within five days of his birthday. Based on these facts and Carmony‘s poor work record and lack of future prospects, the court concluded that he “certainly” fell “within the spirit of . . . the 3-strikes law.”
The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the trial court abused its discretion by refusing to dismiss any of Carmony‘s strikes. Although the court “acknowledged that [Carmony‘s] criminal record [was] serious,” it found that his current offense “must be characterized as `the most technical violation of the section 290 registration requirement we have seen.‘” The court further concluded that “commission of the current offense bears little indication that defendant has recidivist tendencies to commit other offenses” and that the offense “was passive and without practical impact in a way that many misdemeanor offenses and minor drug crimes are not.” Based solely on the “nature and circumstances of the present offense,” the Court of Appeal found that Carmony fell outside the spirit of the three strikes law and reversed.4 In remanding for resentencing, the court noted that Carmony did not fall “entirely outside the spirit of the law” and suggested that the trial court “may wish to consider dismissing two prior strikes and sentencing defendant as a second-strike offender.”
We granted review.
II.
A.
Under
We did not, however, determine whether a trial court‘s decision not to dismiss or strike a prior serious and/or violent
As an initial matter, we note that the relevant case law overwhelmingly supports this conclusion. Although we have not resolved this question in the context of a court‘s refusal to strike a sentencing allegation, we have, in the past, reviewed a court‘s decision not to exercise its
Like our Courts of Appeal, we follow our own lead and hold that a trial court‘s refusal or failure to dismiss or strike a prior
We therefore reject Benevides to the extent it holds that appellate courts lack authority to review a trial “court‘s informed decision” not to “exercise its section 1385 power in furtherance of justice.” (Benevides, supra, 64 Cal.App.4th at p. 735, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 388.) Indeed, we do not find persuasive the grounds proffered by Benevides in support of this holding. In refusing to review the court‘s decision not to strike a prior for abuse of discretion, Benevides noted that “[s]ection 1385 does not confer a motion or right to relief upon the defendant” (Benevides, at p. 734, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 388), and that “a trial court is under no obligation to rule on such a `motion‘” (ibid.). According to Benevides, it therefore “follows that if the court does not exercise its power to dismiss or strike, there is no review available to defendant on appeal.” (Ibid.)
This reasoning, however, is faulty. A defendant has no right to make a motion, and the trial court has no obligation to make a ruling, under
In light of the rights accorded to a defendant and the limitations on the trial court‘s power under
B.
Our inquiry does not, however, end with our decision to apply the deferential abuse of discretion standard. We must still determine whether the trial court abused its discretion by refusing to strike Carmony‘s priors. We conclude it did not.
In reviewing for abuse of discretion, we are guided by two fundamental precepts. First, “`[t]he burden is on the party attacking the sentence to clearly show that the sentencing decision was irrational or arbitrary. [Citation.] In the absence of such a showing, the trial court is presumed to have acted to achieve the legitimate sentencing objectives, and its discretionary determination to impose a particular sentence will not be set aside on review.‘” (People v. Superior Court (Alvarez) (1997) 14 Cal.4th 968, 977-978, 60 Cal.Rptr.2d 93, 928 P.2d 1171 (Alvarez), quoting People v. Superior Court (Du) (1992) 5 Cal.App.4th 822, 831, 7 Cal.Rptr.2d 177.) Second, a “`decision will not be reversed merely because reasonable people might disagree. “An appellate tribunal is neither authorized nor warranted in substituting its judgment for the judgment of the trial judge.“‘” (Alvarez, at p. 978, 60 Cal.Rptr.2d 93, 928 P.2d 1171, quoting People v. Preyer (1985) 164 Cal.App.3d 568, 573, 210 Cal.Rptr. 807.) Taken together, these precepts establish that a trial court does not abuse its discretion unless its decision is so irrational or arbitrary that no reasonable person could agree with it.
Because “all discretionary authority is contextual” (Alvarez, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 978, 60 Cal.Rptr.2d 93, 928 P.2d 1171), we cannot determine whether a trial court has acted irrationally or arbitrarily in refusing to strike a prior conviction allegation without considering the legal principles and policies that should have guided the court‘s actions. We therefore begin by examining the three strikes law.
“[T]he Three Strikes initiative, as well as the legislative act embodying its terms, was intended to restrict courts’ discretion in sentencing repeat offenders.” (Romero, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 528, 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 789, 917 P.2d 628.) To achieve this end, “the Three Strikes law does not offer a discretionary sentencing choice, as do other sentencing laws, but establishes a sentencing requirement to be applied in every case where the defendant has at least one qualifying strike, unless the sentencing court `conclud[es] that an exception to the scheme should be made
Consistent with the language of and the legislative intent behind the three strikes law, we have established stringent standards that sentencing courts must follow in order to find such an exception. “[I]n ruling whether to strike or vacate a prior serious and/or violent felony conviction allegation or finding under the Three Strikes law, on its own motion, `in furtherance of justice’ pursuant to
Thus, the three strikes law not only establishes a sentencing norm, it carefully circumscribes the trial court‘s power to depart from this norm and requires the court to explicitly justify its decision to do so. In doing so, the law creates a strong presumption that any sentence that conforms to these sentencing norms is both rational and proper.
In light of this presumption, a trial court will only abuse its discretion in failing to strike a prior felony conviction allegation in limited circumstances. For example, an abuse of discretion occurs where the trial court was not “aware of its discretion” to dismiss (People v. Langevin (1984) 155 Cal.App.3d 520, 524, 202 Cal. Rptr. 234), or where the court considered impermissible factors in declining to dismiss (Gillispie, supra, 60 Cal.App.4th at p. 434, 70 Cal.Rptr.2d 462). Moreover, “the sentencing norms [established by the Three Strikes law may, as a matter of law,] produce[] an `arbitrary, capricious or patently absurd’ result” under the specific facts of a particular case. (Ibid.)
But “[i]t is not enough to show that reasonable people might disagree about whether to strike one or more” prior conviction allegations. (Myers, supra, 69 Cal.App.4th at p. 310, 81 Cal.Rptr.2d 564.) Where the record is silent (see Gillispie, supra, 60 Cal.App.4th at p. 434, 70 Cal. Rptr.2d 462 [“On a silent record in a post-Romero case, the presumption that a trial court ordinarily is presumed to have correctly applied the law should be applicable“]), or “[w]here the record demonstrates that the trial court balanced the relevant facts and reached an impartial decision in conformity with the spirit of the law, we shall affirm the trial court‘s ruling, even if we might have ruled differently in the first instance” (Myers, at p. 310, 81 Cal.Rptr.2d 564). Because the circumstances must be “extraordinary . . . by which a career criminal can be deemed to fall outside the spirit of the very scheme within which he squarely falls once he commits a strike as part of a long and continuous criminal record, the continuation of which the law was meant to attack” (Strong, supra, 87 Cal.App.4th at p. 338, 104 Cal.Rptr.2d 490), the circumstances where no reasonable people could disagree that the criminal falls outside the spirit of the three strikes scheme must be even more extraordinary. Of course, in such an extraordinary case—where the relevant factors described in Williams, supra, 17 Cal.4th 148, 69 Cal.Rptr.2d 917,
This case, however, is far from extraordinary. Carmony failed to register even though he was informed of his duty to do so on several occasions. He had a lengthy and violent criminal record—which included two prior convictions for failing to register. He had also done little to address his substance abuse problems, had a spotty work history, and appeared to have poor prospects for the future. All of these factors were relevant to the trial court‘s decision under Romero, and the court properly balanced them in concluding that Carmony fell within the spirit of the three strikes law. Indeed, Carmony appears to be “an exemplar of the `revolving door’ career criminal to whom the Three Strikes law is addressed.” (Stone, supra, 75 Cal.App.4th at p. 717, 89 Cal. Rptr.2d 401.) As such, the court‘s decision not to strike Carmony‘s priors is neither irrational nor arbitrary and does not constitute an abuse of its discretion.
By contrast, the Court of Appeal, in reversing, erroneously focused on a single factor—the nature and circumstances of Carmony‘s current offense—to the exclusion of all others. (See People v. Garcia (1999) 20 Cal.4th 490, 501, 85 Cal.Rptr.2d 280, 976 P.2d 831 [noting that judicially mandating the predominance of a single factor in the court‘s exercise of discretion “`would eviscerate the essence of its statutory authority‘“].) By judicially mandating the predominance of this factor, the court not only improperly substituted its own judgment for the judgment of the trial court (see Alvarez, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 978, 60 Cal.Rptr.2d 93, 928 P.2d 1171), it also eviscerated the trial court‘s discretion under our decisions in Romero and Williams.
Finally, Cluff does not dictate a contrary conclusion. Even assuming Cluff was correctly decided, it is distinguishable. In Cluff, the defendant failed to register on his birthday in violation of
The Court of Appeal reversed. According to the court, “none of the facts before the court—whether considered separately or together—support the inference that Cluff failed to update his registration in order to obfuscate his residence or escape the reach of law enforcement.” (Cluff, supra, 87 Cal.App.4th at p. 1003, 105 Cal. Rptr.2d 80.) Because “the evidence in the record d[id] not support the inference of obfuscation that was central to the trial court‘s ruling,” the court found an abuse of discretion and remanded for resentencing. (Id. at p. 1004, 105 Cal.Rptr.2d 80.)
Unlike the trial court in Cluff, which relied on a factor—the defendant‘s intentional obfuscation of his whereabouts—allegedly unsupported by the record, the trial court in this case refused to strike defendant‘s prior convictions based on factors allowed under the law and fully supported by the record. Thus, the Court of Appeal in this case, unlike the court in Cluff, did not conclude that the trial court relied on improper factors in refusing to strike. Rather, it simply disagreed with the court‘s weighing of these factors. And in doing so, it erred. (See Alvarez, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 978, 60 Cal.Rptr.2d 93, 928 P.2d 1171 [holding that an appellate court may not substitute its judgment for the
III.
We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
WE CONCUR: GEORGE, C.J., KENNARD, BAXTER, WERDEGAR, CHIN, and MORENO, JJ.
Concurring Opinion by MORENO, J.
In this case, the majority holds that the trial court‘s decision not to dismiss a strike against a defendant pursuant to
This class of cases falls essentially into two categories, which may be termed procedural and substantive. The former occurs when the trial court proceeds in an improper manner, i.e., “where the trial court was not `aware of its discretion’ to dismiss [citation], or where the court considered impermissible factors in declining to dismiss [citation].” (Maj. opn., ante, 14 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 889, 92 P.3d at p. 376.) The latter occurs when, notwithstanding the lack of the above irregularities, the resulting sentence is clearly erroneous because “the relevant factors described in [People v.] Williams [(1998)] 17 Cal.4th 148, 69 Cal.Rptr.2d 917, 948 P.2d 429,1 manifestly support the striking of a prior conviction. . . .” (Maj. opn., ante, 14 Cal. Rptr.3d at pp. 889-90, 92 P.3d at p. 376.)
The majority concludes that the sentence in this case falls into neither of those two categories. I agree in light of the extent of defendant‘s prior criminal record and his poor prospects. And yet, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the electorate that enacted the Three Strikes law did not intend to impose a life sentence
I CONCUR: CHIN, J.