Guillory

BACKGROUND

A.

Senate Bill No. 1437 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.) (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015) (Senate Bill 1437), effective January 1, 2019, changed the law relating to accomplice liability for murder to better align punishment with individual culpability. (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 1(b), (f).) To that end, Senate Bill 1437 eliminated the natural and probable consequences doctrine as to murder and narrowed the felony murder exception to the malice requirement. (People v. Mancilla (2021) 67 Cal.App.5th 854, 862.)

As relevant here, Senate Bill 1437 amended section 189 to require that the perpetrator of a felony murder was either (1) the actual killer; (2) aided and abetted the killer with the intent to kill; or (3) was a major participant in the underlying felony and acted with reckless indifference to human life, as those terms are used in the statute defining felony murder special circumstances.

2 (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 3; § 189, subd. (e); see § 190.2, subd. (d).) It also created, through former section 1170.95 (now section 1172.6), a path for offenders convicted under the former felony murder rule to petition the trial court to vacate their conviction and for resentencing if they…