Following redesignation of juvenile adjudication for felony offense to misdemeanor under Proposition 47 (Pen. Code, § 1170.18), offender was not entitled to have DNA samples expunged from state database. After Proposition 47 passed, C.B. filed a petition to redesignate his juvenile adjudication for felony grand theft to a misdemeanor. The juvenile court granted the petition. He also moved to have the samples of his DNA collected as a result of that felony adjudication expunged because samples are not collected from misdemeanants and he was now a misdemeanant. The court denied the motion. He appealed. Held: Affirmed. Penal Code section 299 (enacted by Prop. 69, the DNA Fingerprint, Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act) limits DNA expungement to four categories of cases. Proposition 47 relief is not among them. After C.B. filed his petition, the Legislature amended section 299 to specifically prohibit judges from relieving individuals of their duty to provide a DNA sample on the basis of Proposition 47. C.B.’s argument that section 299 impermissibly amended Proposition 47 and could not be retroactively applied to him must be rejected because the amendment to section 299 simply clarified existing law prohibiting expungement and statutes that merely clarify existing law can be applied retroactively. While Proposition 47 does provide that a felony redesignated as a misdemeanor shall be a “misdemeanor for all purposes,” similar language exists in section 17, subdivision (b) and courts have held that a felony wobbled to a misdemeanor “for all purposes” under section 17, subdivision (b) is not a basis for granting DNA expungement. (See Coffey v. Superior Court (2005) 129 Cal.App.4th 809.) The trial court properly denied C.B.’s expungement motion.

The full opinion is available on the court’s website here: http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A146277.PDF