Martinez

While serving the third year of a sentence of 157 years to life for kidnapping a woman and committing violent crimes against her, including rape and other forcible sex acts, Steven C. Martinez was stabbed by another prison inmate. The stabbing lacerated Martinez’s spinal cord, causing “immediate and complete quadriplegia.” Due to his physical condition, Martinez later asked the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) to recommend that his sentence be recalled and that he be granted a compassionate release from custody pursuant to Penal Code section 1170, subdivision (e). (Further section references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise specified.)

Section 1170 provides that BPH “may recommend” to the sentencing court that a defendant’s sentence be recalled (§ 1170, subd. (e)(1)) and the defendant be released from custody (§ 1170, subd. (e)(9)) if, after judgment was originally imposed, the defendant has become terminally ill with an incurable condition that would produce death in six months, or has become permanently medically incapacitated with a medical condition rendering the defendant unable to perform activities of basic daily living and requiring 24-hour total care, and…

I concur in part I of the majority opinion. Consequently, I agree with the following conclusions of the majority opinion:

I respectfully dissent from part II of the majority opinion. I agree with the warden of Corcoran State Prison and with Superior Court Judge Lloyd G. Connelly that, on this record, defendant does not “pose a threat to public safety.” (§ 1170, subd. (e)(2)(B).)

In construing these provisions of section 1170, we should have in mind the prescient thoughts of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who wrote, “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” (Bartlett, Familiar Quotations (16th ed. 1992) p. 542 (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., from The Common Law, 1881).)

The applicable provisions of section 1170 were adopted by the Legislature in 1997. As the majority acknowledge, “[t]he purpose of [Assembly Bill No. 29 (1997-1998 Reg. Sess.); Stats. 1997, ch. 751, § 1, p. 5070] was not just compassion; it was to save the state money.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 590.)

If this was true in 1997, it must be one thousand times more true today, when the state finds itself in an unprecedented budget crisis. We are closing schools and clinics. 2 Fees at our state…

While serving the third year of a sentence of 157 years to life for kidnapping a woman and committing violent crimes against her, including rape and other forcible sex acts, Steven C. Martinez was stabbed by another prison inmate. The stabbing lacerated Martinez's spinal cord, causing "immediate and complete quadriplegia." Due to his physical condition, Martinez later asked the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) to recommend that his sentence be recalled and that he be granted a compassionate release from custody pursuant to Penal Code section 1170, subdivision (e). (Further section references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise specified.)

Section 1170 provides that BPH "may recommend" to the sentencing court that a defendant's sentence be recalled (§ 1170, subd. (e)(1)) and the defendant be released from custody (§ 1170, subd. (e)(9)) if, after judgment was originally imposed, the defendant has become terminally ill with an incurable condition that would produce death in six months, or has become permanently medically incapacitated with a medical condition rendering the defendant unable to perform activities of basic daily living and requiring 24-hour total…