A defendant’s claim that his conviction rests on a now-invalid imputed malice theory is not categorically barred from PC 1172.6 relief simply because the error may have been cognizable on direct appeal prior to SB 1437’s enactment. The Court of Appeal erred by erecting a habeas-like procedural bar to defendant’s instructional ambiguity claim. Further, while PC 1172.6(a)(3) conditions eligibility on the defendant’s present inability to be convicted “because of” SB 1437 changes to the murder laws, this requires only that those changes “be a basis for the claim, not that they be the sole basis.”

The full opinion is available on the court’s website here: https://www4.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S287814.PDF