People v. Tran CA3

DISCUSSION

Franklin allows a youth offender “to preserve evidence of youth-related mitigating factors for purposes of a youthful offender parole hearing to be held in the future.” (People v. Ngo (2023) 89 Cal.App.5th 116, 118.) Therefore, defendant’s entitlement to a Franklin hearing depends on his entitlement to a youth offender parole hearing under section 3051. Defendant contends section 3051 violates equal protection as applied to him. He argues that a first degree drive-by shooting murder is “identical” to the drive-by shooting special circumstance because both require the non-killer to either possess the intent to kill or act with reckless indifference to human life. But section 3051 grants parole opportunities to offenders of the former while excluding the latter. Citing Briscoe, defendant asserts this differential treatment lacks rational basis. We disagree after a de novo review of his claim. (Briscoe, supra, 105 Cal.App.5th at p. 487.) A. Drive-by shooting “[M]urder that is perpetrated by means of discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle, intentionally at another person outside of the vehicle with the intent to inflict death, is murder of the first degree.” (§…