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Name: People v. Chubbuck
Case #: H040388
Court: CA Court of Appeal
District 6 DCA
Opinion Date: 11/18/2014
Summary

The factors listed in Penal Code section 1170.126, subdivision (e)(2), which disqualify an inmate from resentencing under the Three Strikes Reform Act (Prop. 36), do not need to be pled and proved. In 1999 a jury convicted Chubbuck of solicitation to commit assault with a deadly weapon. Because he had two prior strikes, the court sentenced Chubbuck to 25 years to life under the Three Strikes law. After passage of the Three Strikes Reform Act, Chubbuck sought resentencing under Penal Code section 1170.126, subdivision (b). The trial court denied resentencing because it found that Chubbuck’s current offense was disqualifying under section 1170.126, subdivision (e)(2), since it involved an intent “to cause great bodily injury to another person.” Chubbuck appealed arguing that the prosecution had never pled and proved that he intended to cause great bodily injury during the commission of the current (solicitation) offense. Held: Affirmed. The Court of Appeal here agreed with the analysis in several published cases that have held the Reform Act does not contain a pleading a proof requirement with respect to factors that disqualify defendants from resentencing. “The pleading and proof requirement plainly is a part of only the prospective part of the Reform Act, which governs the sentencing of a defendant with ‘two or more prior serious and/or violent felony convictions’ who has suffered a third felony conviction; it is not a part of section 1170.126, the retrospective part of the Reform Act that governs a petition for resentencing brought by an inmate already serving a life sentence under the Three Strikes law.” (People v. White (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 512, 527.)