People v. Mora CA4/1

DISCUSSION

I

Proposition 36, known as the Three Strikes Reform Act (Act), and passed by

ballot measure in 2012, changed the requirements for sentencing for third strike

offenders. Prior to the Act, an individual with two or more strike priors who was

convicted of any new felony could be sentenced to an indeterminate life term. (People v.

Yearwood (2013) 213 Cal.App.4th 161, 167 (Yearwood).) Under the Act, a life sentence

is reserved for cases in which the third strike is serious or violent, or the prosecution has

pled and proven an enumerated disqualifying fact. (Yearwood, at pp. 167-168.)

The Act also created a procedure permitting the resentencing of prisoners "serving

an indeterminate term of imprisonment [under the Three Strikes law], whose sentence

under [the A]ct would not have been an indeterminate life sentence." (§ 1170.126, subd.

3 (a).) To obtain a new sentence under this procedure, "the prisoner must file a petition for

a recall of sentence . . . in the trial court . . . within two years after the Act's effective date

'or at a later date upon a showing of good cause.' " (Yearwood, supra, 213 Cal.App.4th at

p. 170.) A prisoner who files a…