CDCR

facts and argument brought before the Supreme Court in GHOLAR’s writ petition and supporting documents. See Petitioner’s Excerpts of Record, Volumes II and III. This disparity in eligibility to be resentenced is based upon but a single factor: the time their sentence became final. It is not based upon any other legally defensible factor nor a legitimate government purpose. GHOLAR argues in this writ proceeding, as he did in his petition to the California Supreme Court, that such a timing factor violates the due process and equal protection guarantees in the U.S. Constitution, made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. The gist of this argument is that when the California Legislature deemed that a change in criminal law was appropriate to reduce the time of incarceration for certain crimes, the Legislature was under a constitutional duty to treat all similarly situated criminal defendants in an equal manner. While these new laws are clearly retroactive to all similarly situated criminal defendants whose sentence is not final, they don’t apply to all…