SB 260 - Youth Opportunity Parole Hearings (YOPH) UPDATE

The new law has been codified in the California Penal Code Sections 3014, 3046, 3051 and 4081. BPH is busy bringing all those entitled to a YOP hearing to their first appearance before the Board for the YOPH.

If you were under 18 at the time of the life crime and have not committed certain serious crimes after turning 18, your next and all future hearings will be YOPHs, at which, great weight must be given "to the diminished culpability of juveniles as compared to adults, the hallmark features of youth, and any subsequent growth and increased maturity" in determining your parole suitability.  [NOTE: Inmates do not qualify if they are LWOP or a death penalty]. This is a brand new process, below is a description of my first exposure from the outside looking in.

SB 260 - Youth Opportunity Parole Hearings (YOPH) are on their way!

Attorney Diane T.  Letarte was at CMC, last week [January 17, 2014] where the 2 member Panel (including Commissioner Anderson) were busy away ...doing their first SB260 - Youth Opportunity Parole Hearing at 8:30am. My non-SB260 client and I waited patiently for our 10:30 am regularly Parole Suitability hearing to start. The Youth Parole hearing took almost 5 hours to complete. We did not start our Parole Hearing until 2 pm in the afternoon. Once started, I requested that the Panel apply In Re Butler  (Base Term calculation) to which I was told they had not been trained on In Re Butler  yet (and to table this objection for now).  Fortunately, the wait was a Blessing.... after the previous 8:30 am agonizing SB 260 hearing, the Commissioners welcomed this Regular Parole Hearing and stated (after the Decision was rendered) that my client was an "easy case" ------ WE GOT A GRANT! my client was found Suitable. Even with the 2 concurrent LIFE sentence, my client was given 6 month credits  (per clean year) and the "release date" was calculated to a date that was already passed!  It was my client's first Subsequent hearing. Hourrayyyy!

SB 260 PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPLEMENTS - sooner than we think!

 The criminal defense Attorney assigned to the SB 260 hearing (before my hearing) assured me that the inmate had recently been given an updated Psychological Supplement that took into consideration all the "Hallmarks of a Youth".  He stated that although the inmate had his last Psychological risk assessment completed August 2013, the inmate received a Supplement in December 2013 - only 4 months after the FAD Risk assessment Evaluation was complete in order to address the "Hallmarks of Youth". This requires the Doctor to accord great weight to the inmate's age and circumstances at the time of the life crime. "Hallmarks of youth" include immaturity, impulsivity, recklessness, lessened responsibility, lessened ability to anticipate and appreciate consequences, immune to punishment, susceptibility to negative family/peer influences, and lessened capacity to  overcome (or escape) dysfunctional home environments or crime-producing settings.

This short Notice for a Psychological Supplement was unexpected since BPH had claimed that if the Risk assessment was less than 1 year old - they would not be able to re-do another Risk Assessment in such a short period of time. BPH re-iterated that the Panel would give "great weight" to the Hallmarks of Youth. Inmates should be ready to receive a visit from the BPH's Psychologist, for any upcoming YOP Hearings.

 REMINDER:
A)  If inmate are serving a determinate sentence, they will be eligible for a YOPH @ 15 years.
B)  If inmate are serving a life sentence of less than 25-life, they will be eligible for a YOPH @ 20 years.
C) If inmate are serving a life sentence of 25 or more-life, they will be eligible for a YOPH @ 25 years.

In re ROY BUTLER Decision: Does it help LIFERs? (BASE TERM CALCULATION)

In re ROY BUTLER  (12/16/13)  --   Case Nos. A139411 & A137273
Alameda County Case No. 91694B

In summary, the BUTLER Court forces the Parole Board to calculate the base term of life prisoners at their Initial Hearings. Thus, the BUTLER case section that will apply to all LIFERs is the Base Term Calculation as ORDERed by the Court. Regardless of whether the LIFER will be found suitable or not, once the LIFER walks out of the Parole Hearing Board room, he will have a Base Term calculation for his specific crime under his specific circumstance, as defined below. If this is a subsequent Parole hearing, s/he will also be provided their Base Term, at that hearing.

The BIG QUESTION: How is the CASE  going to affect the time served by LIFERS?

According to BPH Executive Director Jennifer Shaffer and Chief Legal Counsel Howard Moseley ------ NO CHANGES will occur for the length of time incarcerated.

On the other hand, Attorney Diane Letarte would argue that once the Calculation is done at the Hearing (on the record for possible Appeals) and the BASE TERM has been exceeded,  the Panel (2-3 Commissioners at the Hearing) must articulate the reason for a denial beyond the Base Term in a non-arbitrary fashion. The Panel should be held to the Arbitrary-and-Capricious standard. Any action less than this standard would violate the Due Process of the Law and fail to provide a reasoned explanation for the denial.NOTE: YOPH Youth and Elderly parole hearings do NOT have a base term calculation done at the end of their hearings because if granted Parole, they are immediately release after the 150 days review period, regardless of the base terms.

The News Media links are below: San Francisco, Sacramento,  Los Angeles:

Click here for San Francisco 's version
Click Here for LA 's version
Click Here for Sacramento' s Version

Below is an excerpt of the ORDER. Paragraphs 3, will require the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH), via the Executive Officer Jennifer Shaffer, to announce NEW policies (and/or Directives) that will force the Commissioners to calculate the base term for all LIFER inmates during their hearing regardless of whether they are found suitable. This tern calculation was refused to be done by the Board for many years. It is encouraging to see the changes  in favor of the LIFER population.

========================
IS HEREBY ORDERED that:

1. ...

2. Upon issuance of a decision from this Court in Case No.
X137273, whether favorable or unfavorable to petitioner, the terms of
settlement for Case No. A139411, as described below, will become
effective immediately.

3. The Board shall, at the next publicly noticed Board meeting,
announce a policy of calculating the base term and the adjusted base term
for all life term inmates at the initial parole consideration hearing. The
Board will implement phis policy on faze first day of the calendar month
following the aforementioned meeting.

SB260 YOUTH OFFENDER HEARING to be "kicked off" by BPH on January 2014

After attending the mandatory October 2013 ADA (American with Disabilities Act)  training Seminar for the BPH State appointed LIFER attorneys, several questions were answered as it related to the new up and coming Youth Offender Hearing, among others. Below is a summary of information pulled from several resources, including BPH's Chief Counsel Howard Moseley

SB 260,  creates a new type of parole hearing, known as the Youth Offender Hearing (Penal Code 3051), which will be conducted much like the current LIFER parole hearings. The added BONUS element to be vigorously argued by the Criminal Defense attorney will be the "age" of the offender at the time of the Crime (not the conviction date).

We (Law office of Diane T. Letarte) always argued the Age for specific LIFERS that were young at the time of the comitted offense, but it always seemed to fall on deaf (Commissioners') ears in the past. Now with SB 260 and the new Directives to the Commissioners, basically that the  “hallmarks” of youth (lack of maturity, flawed reasoning skills, susceptible to manipulation) be given “great weight” in suitability deliberations. Furthermore new psychological evaluations will also be given to those covered under the new law, again with “great weight” given to the characteristics of youth when making psychological risk assessments reports. Even if the inmate is not provided a Grant of Parole at the Youth Hearing, the age will still carry "great weight" in the length of time the denial will be (3, 5, 7,10,15 years), but still under Marsy's Law standard.

On the other hand, if the inmate is found Suitable, the inmate will be immediately eligible for parole (release) since they met the "time" criteria for the Youth Offender Hearing to be allowed the Hearing. This means there will be no TERM calculations needed at deliberation time, like the regular LIFER inmates who get found suitable.

Who will be eligible for the Youth Offender Hearing? 

The BPH is currently evaluating all those previously denied prisoners who are eligible for Youth Offender Hearing consideration with a focus towards advancing their next hearing in a timely fashion. The bill does allows for an 18 month implementation window, beginning Jan. 1, 2014, during which time the BPH will identify those whose hearing should be advanced as well as some individuals who may be entitled to an initial hearing (earlier than before) or consideration earlier than anticipated under their original sentence.

A certain amount of time will need to be first served by the inmates as states below:

• DSL: eligible at the 15th year of incarceration 
• ISL:  (Life term)  less than 25 years:      eligible at the 20th year of incarceration
• ISL:  (Life term)  greater than 25 years: eligible at the 25th year of incarceration

In summary,  with the signing of SB 260 there will be many inmates who immediately qualify, for a parole hearing, and others who already qualify for a parole hearing and will now need to be considered in light of the new law. Those inmates that have already went to their Parole Hearing (pre-SB 260) and were denied parole may consider filing a Petition to Advance (PTA) their hearing given the "NEW CIRCUMSTANCES", in their case, the new law.

Given the SB 9 for Juvenile LWOP  passed last year [that were modified to Life with possibility of Parole], they may now also take advantage of the new SB 260 this year and possibly apply for a Youth Offender Hearing.


Contact an experience LIFER Attorney to maneuver though the maze of options now available for the Youth Offender Hearings option, among others.