The CSC holds the exclusion of One Strike offenders from seeking early parole under California’s youth offender parole statute (PC § 3051) does not violate Equal Protection. Under PC 3051, certain persons incarcerated for crimes committed at a young age may be eligible for early release on parole. However, the statute categorically excludes certain groups from consideration for youth offender parole hearings, including those convicted of forcible sexual offenses and sentenced under the One Strike law. (PC 3051(h).) The defendant argued excluding One Strike offenders from early parole eligibility, while not excluding those convicted of murder without special circumstances, violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. The CSC held there is no equal protection violation as a rational basis exists to exclude One Strike offenders from early parole eligibility based on the increased risk of recidivism they pose and the aggravated nature of their offenses. [Editor’s Notes: In a dissenting opinion filed by Justice Liu, he cited to data showing that sex offenders consistently recidivate at lower rates than non-sex offenders and pointed out that the Legislature has expressly recognized that the attributes of youth are not crime-specific. Based on this, Justice Liu concluded the majority’s hypothesized rationale which fuses concerns about the aggravated nature of One Strike offenses with concerns about recidivism “does not dispel the genuine risk that the One Strike exclusion has more to do with irrational prejudice” against “an especially despised subset of young offenders” than rational policy judgment.]

The full opinion is available on the court’s website here: https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S262229.PDF