Catlin

After petitioner Steven David Catlin was sentenced to death, the Legislature enacted Penal Code section 1054.9. That statute permits a defendant who has been sentenced either to death or to life imprisonment without parole to obtain discovery of “materials ... to which the . . . defendant would have been entitled at time of trial” (§ 1054.9, subd. (b)) if the defendant shows that good faith efforts to obtain such materials from trial counsel were unsuccessful. Four and one-half years after the law’s passage, petitioner sought discovery under its provisions. The trial court denied the request as untimely, because it had not been made within a “reasonable time” after section 1054.9’s enactment. Petitioner filed a writ petition in the Court of Appeal challenging the trial court’s denial order; the Court of Appeal upheld the order.

At issue here is whether a trial court may deny as untimely a section 1054.9 motion for postconviction discovery. Our answer is “no,” for these reasons: The statute lacks any language allowing a trial court to deny such a motion as untimely, and the statute’s legislative history shows that the Legislature specifically chose not to impose a…