If you live in the State of California, you have no doubt been bamboozled with an onslaught of political ads for all the Propositions on the ballot at tomorrow’s election. One initiative that has received somewhat less coverage is Proposition 47, “Criminal Sentences. Misdemeanor Penalties. Initiative Statute.” This Proposition, if enacted, will make certain drug and property crimes misdemeanors instead of felonies, greatly reducing the amount of incarceration required for such a conviction.

My suggestion is to VOTE YES ON PROP 47! Here’s why:

1. MONEY: Prop 47 will save us loads of money; according to the State website, savings would be “potentially in the high hundreds of millions of dollars annually.” There would be 3,000 fewer people who are convicted of low-level crimes sent to State Prison each year, along with thousands fewer sent to County Jail. So the financial benefit extends not only to the State, but also to Los Angeles County, which has long suffered from grave budget deficits.

2. CRIME PREVENTION: According to the State website, savings resulting from the measure will be “used to support school truancy and dropout prevention, victim services, mental health and drug abuse treatment, and other programs designed to keep offenders out of prison and jail.” In other words, instead of spending millions per year in locking people up, the State will have more money to invest in our youth and in programs that help keep them on the straight and narrow before they go down that dark path of drug abuse.

3. EXEMPTIONS: The Proposition does not apply to defendants who have a prior conviction for a “serious or violent crime” nor will it apply to sex offenders. So if you are concerned about drug dealers being put back on the street, chances are this law will not apply in that type of case. Also this proposition does not apply to crimes of violence against a person, so if someone is injured or killed during the commission of a crime, there would be no leniency given as a result of Prop 47.

Prop 47 would also allow those who are already incarcerated under the applicable sections of the penal code to petition for resentencing. This too would free up a huge amount of State funds to be re-appropriated to other areas in the State’s budget. Moreover, Prop 47 would allow those who have already served out their felony sentence to petition the court to have their felony conviction reduced to a misdemeanor (and thereafter expunged), which would renew their voting rights and greatly increase employability.

Overall, Prop 47 seems like a great idea and I strongly encourage all Californians to vote YES ON PROPOSITION 47!

For more specifics on Prop 47, see: http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/en/propositions/47/analysis.htm
See also: http://www.prop47impacts.org

For more information on the other ballot initiatives, see: http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/en/propositions/

A recent case from the California Court of Appeals caught my attention because it involved a defendant here in California, and a “victim” in my home state of Indiana. In the matter of People v. Shapiro (2014) Cal.App.4th, the court affirmed the conviction of 59-year-old Mark Irving Shapiro (hereafter “Old Shapiro”), who had a 2+ year online relationship with a young Hoosier girl (hereafter “Hoosier Jane Doe”), who was 14-years-old at the onset of their communication.

Shapiro pretended to be young lad in Huntington Beach, California, when he began talking to Hoosier Jane Doe in chat rooms just before her 15th birthday. He claimed that he was only a few years older than her and even sent her pictures of a teenage boy to represent himself. After a while, their occasional chats turned into constant contact, to the extent that Hoosier Jane Doe began to shut out her real life friends and family in favor of Old Shapiro, and even claimed to be “in love” with him. When Hoosier Jane Doe was 16, the relationship turned sexual. Old Shapiro began encouraging her to masturbate and sending her links to pornographic videos and exchanging naked pictures of his teenage alter ego for naked pictures of her. He also convinced her to penetrate herself with the handle of a hairbrush in order to achieve orgasm.

Eventually Hoosier Jane Doe’s parents became worried about the dramatic changes in her behavior and they hired a private investigator to do a background check on their daughter’s long-distance love. After installing a keystroke logger on her computer, they were able to track down Old Shapiro’s true identity and the subject case ensued.

Old Shapiro was convicted of violating California Penal Code section 288.3(a), and sentenced to 5 years of formal probation and 240 days in jail. On appeal, Old Shapiro put forth several failing arguments, including a defense that the trial court had rejected based on Indiana’s definition of a “minor.”

The defendant was convicted of violating a statute that prohibits contact with a minor with intent to commit one of the target crimes; the target crime in this case was California Penal Code section 289(h), which prohibits “participation in an act of sexual penetration with another person who is under 18 years of age.” For purposes of the statute, “sexual penetration” is defined as “the act of causing penetration, however slight…by any foreign object, substance, instrument or device, or by any unknown object.”

I included the text of the statute here for a reason: Old Shapiro argued that he had the mistaken belief that he was not violating Penal Code 288.3, which prohibits contact with a minor – because in Indiana, the age of consent is 16. However, the argument fails because the target crime here specifically prohibits participating in penetration of someone who is “under 18 years of age,” and does not use the term “minor.”

Shapiro also claimed it was a violation of his right to privacy and free speech, claiming that since Hoosier Jane Doe was an adult under Indiana law, the two had the right, as consenting adults, to discuss sex. The court disagreed. Another part of Old Shapiro’s argument was that California’s law was intended only to protect California minors, but the court was equally unpersuaded by this contention, especially since the statute in question makes no mention of the minor’s location.

The point of this discussion is just to point out that when you are charged with a particular offense in one state, you should expect the laws of that state to apply – and not rely on another state’s definition or loophole to provide you with some sort of defense. Although we are all entitled to Equal Protection under the law, alleged violations of that principle are subject to tough scrutiny under the law and will rarely be cause for exoneration.

Today in court, counsel for Alix Tichelman claims she had no motive to kill Forrest Hayes, the victim in her pending manslaughter case out of Santa Cruz. Hayes was an executive at Google and also worked for several other tech companies. Public defender Larry Bigham told the judge that Hayes had been a steady source of income for the defendant, who would thus have no reason to want him dead. He was trying to get Tichelman released on her own recognizance or at least get a reduction in her $1.5 million bail; both requests were denied.

Security video from the time of Hayes’ death apparently shows the lady of the night preparing a syringe of heroin and injecting it into Hayes, who collapsed after a severe reaction to the drug. According to the police, instead of calling 911, Tichelman packed up her drugs while sipping a glass of red wine, and promptly got the hell out of dodge. She is now facing a manslaughter charge (among others), the prosecution alleging that administering heroin was “part of her routine.”

The scenario was all too familiar for Tichelman. In September 2013, she came out of the bathroom to find her “boyfriend,” 53-year-old Dean Riopelle, unconscious from a heroin overdose. She claims that she spent 5 minutes trying to revive him and only then called 911. Riopelle was eventually transported to the hospital but was taken off life support one week later.

So, can evidence of the prior case be used against Alix Tichelman in this new case? The answer is: maybe.

California Evidence Code section 1101(b) provides the following: "Nothing in this section prohibits the admission of evidence that a person committed a crime, civil wrong, or other act when relevant to prove some fact (such as motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake or accident, or whether a defendant in a prosecution for an unlawful sexual act or attempted unlawful sexual act did not reasonably and in good faith believe that the victim consented) other than his or her disposition to commit such an act."

In layman’s terms, this section allows evidence of “prior bad acts” to prove anything BUT the accused having a propensity towards a particular act or behavior. This type of character evidence can, however, be used to prove things such as intent, knowledge, familiarity, etc… So basically, the prosecution only needs to frame its relevance in terms other than to show likelihood of defendant having committed the crime at hand, and the incident is admissible character evidence.

There have been many cases that define the parameters of this type of character evidence, far beyond this blog’s capacity. For more, see: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1982&context=plr