Burton

—Pursuant to Penal Code section 1054.9, a defendant sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole may obtain discovery materials from the superior court after unsuccessfully attempting to obtain such materials from trial counsel. Here, petitioner wrote to his trial counsel before filing a request pursuant to section 1054.9 in the superior court. The court denied the request because petitioner was not represented by an attorney. Petitioner filed the current petition for writ of mandate in this court, seeking to overturn the trial court’s decision. Having concluded that there is no statutory requirement that a defendant be represented by an attorney at the time he pursues a section 1054.9 motion, we shall direct the superior court to vacate its order.

BACKGROUND

Petitioner Henry Burton, Jr., was convicted in 1982 of two counts of murder, for which he received concurrent sentences of life without the possibility of parole. Section 1054.9 was enacted in 2002 and took effect at the beginning of 2003. It provides, in pertinent part: “Upon the prosecution of a postconviction writ of habeas corpus or a motion to vacate a judgment in a case in which a sentence of…