The office I work at requires the prosecutors to submit a trial memo at the conclusion of each trial completed. It outlines, the charges, all the parties involved, pre-trial offers, the facts of the case, as well as any noteworthy problems. For trial #26, under the noteworthy problems section, I simply wrote:

“Defendant is a difficult individual.”

#26 was a relatively simple case. Defendant had been arrested for absconding from parole, he gave a false name to officers, and he snuck a sizeable amount of methamphetamine into the jail with him, which was located during a routine search at the jail.

Defendant had pretty significant prior criminal history. He had a prior strike, which doubled his prison exposure, and he had five prior prison terms, which, at the time, added a year of exposure per prior. In total, defendant could have been sentenced to 13 years. We offered 3.

Defendant wasn’t having it. He wanted his day in court, and so off to jury trial we went. The trial was relatively simple. Defendant took the stand on his own behalf (against advise of defense counsel) and basically admitted to the charges. He was unremorseful at sentencing and that, in conjunction with his record, resulted in the judge imposing an aggravated sentence of 13 years prison.

Then the laws in California started to shift. Prior prison terms were eliminated which shaved 5 years off defendant’s sentence. Later, the crime of possession of drugs in the jail was reduced to a misdemeanor and sentencing reform started making its way into the criminal courts, compelling judges to default to mid-term sentencing and making it much harder for the prosecution to seek aggravated upper terms sentences without the admission or proof of aggravating sentencing factors.

By the time defendant returned to our County for resentencing on all these issues, defendant had served in excess of 3 years and we dismissed the case outright, rather then resentence at all. This 13 year felony prison case had morphed into a misdemeanor right before our eyes.

In general, I find myself frustrated with the reforms occurring in the criminal courts in California because it is effectively removing discretion from prosecutors to elect charging and settlement offers short of trial, and it ties judges hands from exercising discretion at the time of sentencing. In my experience prosecutors and judges are well meaning individuals and do not take advantage of the wide-breadth of discretion available to them. They are generally individuals who try everyday to do the right thing.

But, having watched this case evolve through the changes over the last several years, I can’t help but observe that is a perfect example of the changing tide of criminal law in California, and the move away from incarceration for certain types of crimes. The changes in the law essentially protected the defendant from himself-he elected to exercise his rights to a jury trial and the exposure at the time that risk was taken was high.

This defendant simply snuck methamphetamine into the jail without any evidence he intended to sell or distribute it to his peers. His criminal history necessitated a large prison sentence at the time per the law. The reforms made since then significantly reduced that sentence, and the defendant ended up serving exactly what the People had offered, despite the defendant and the difficult choices he made.