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Does Felony Murder Special Circumstance Bar PC § 1170.95?
In 1998, a Solano County jury convicted Mr. Shannon Secrease of first degree murder and carjacking (Penal Code § 215(a)), finding true a special circumstance allegation under Penal Code § 490.2 (a) that the murder was committed during a carjacking.
The carjacking was the idea of Ericc Pickett, Secrease’s friend, who knew the victim was selling a truck with a large engine and Pickett decided he would steal the truck instead. The plan was that if the truck owner resisted the theft, Pickett would “whip his ass.” During a test drive, with Secrease in the truck, Pickett pulled out a gun and shot the truck owner.
Secrease told two others after the crime that if he knew Secrease was going to kill the truck owner, he would not have accompanied him that day. Secrease also told two other witnesses that he, not Pickett, had fired the gun.
Why This Article Matters: Even if a jury find true a murder special circumstance to be true, this does not bar resentencing under the new felony murder rule, a provided for at Penal Code § 1170.95. The trial court must review the facts under the holdings of Banks (major participant) and Clark (reckless indifference to human life) to determine if resentencing must take place.
The jury did not find true the allegation that Secrease personally used a firearm in the commission of the crime, but it did find true the felony murder special circumstance.
The judge in the case sentenced Mr. Secrease to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Secrease immediately appealed the felony murder special circumstance finding, but the appellate court affirmed the jury’s finding on this, explaining that the jury could have found any one of three scenarios: 1) Secrease was a major participant and acted with reckless indifference to human life; 2) Secrease was a direct aider and abettor in the murder and harbored the intent to kill; or 3) Secrease was the actual killer. This ruling was issued after his conviction in 1998.
The jury did not have to specify which of the three scenarios it found to be true.
In June 2019, after Senate Bill 1437 had passed, Secrease filed a petition for resentencing under Penal Code § 1170.95. The judge summarily denied the petition, explaining that a felony murder special circumstance finding by the jury barred him from making a prima facie case for relief as a matter of law.
Court of Appeal First Appellate District San FranciscoSecrease appealed to the First Appellate District, which granted review and noted that there is a case pending review before the California Supreme Court right now on this issue. The First Appellate District also noted that the courts of appeal were split on whether the prior felony murder special circumstance finding bars relief as a matter of law.
The First Appellate District held that such a finding, before the rulings in People v. Banks (2015) 61 Cal. 4th 788 and People v. Clark (2016) 63 4th 422, does not bar relief as a matter of law because Banks and Clark added new meaning to how a jury can find one was a major participant and how one can act with reckless indifference. In other words, in 1998, the jury could have found Secrease was a major participant who acted with reckless indifference, but these terms have had their definitions changed by Banks and Clark, so the trial court must look deeper into the underlying conviction.
In Banks, defendants Banks, Gardiner, Daniels and Matthews robbed a marijuana dispensary. Matthews drove an SUV and dropped off his armed coperpetrators off at the dispensary. He then parked nearby and stayed in touch with his coperpetrators by cell phone while the robbery was taking place. Confronted by a security guard while escaping, Banks shot the guard to death in an exchange of gunfire.
Matthews only was the driver. He did not procure any of the weapons used; he was not present when the shooting took place; and he had no knowledge that his accomplices had killed before. The California Supreme Court found that this relatively shallow involvement in the crime did not meet the definition of “reckless indifference to human life.” The court found that his involvement did not exemplify acts that supported a finding that defendant “knowingly engaged in criminal activities that carried with it” . . . “extreme likelihood” of risk of death, or “grave risk of death.” Tison v. Arizona (1987) 481 U.S. 137, 157.
In Clark, supra, the California Supreme Court built upon the Banks framework of analysis on the mens rea component. William Clark, defendant, was one of a group of perpetrators who committed an armed robbery of a computer store. When all customers had left after closing time, the plan was for Nokkuwa Ervin to force the store employees into a bathroom using an unloaded gun to coerce them, handcuff them to a railing and then take computer equipment from the empty store.
Although Clark was the “mastermind” of the plan, he stayed behind and acted as a lookout, staying in touch with his coperpetrators by cellphone, with the intention of arriving in the second stage of the robbery to load the stolen computers into a rented truck.
The plan went awry when Kathy Lee, the mother of one of the employees, unexpectedly arrived on scene and Ervin shot her, killing Lee. There was no evidence that Ervin was known to have a propensity for violence, let alone Clark was aware of such a propensity.
In Secrease’s case, the First Appellate District remanded the case to the trial court to reevaluate the evidence to see if Secrease’s 1170.95 petition was barred under the new standard of “reckless disregard for human life” as a major participant under Banks and Clark.
The citation for the First Appellate District Court ruling discussed above is People v. Shannon Secrease (1st App. Dist., 2021) 63 Cal. App. 5th 231, 277 Cal. Rptr. 3d 535.
For more information about SB 1437 issues, please click on the following articles:
