Juvenile justice.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill text does not provide specific details on how many individuals will be affected or the exact number of cases that might move to adult court.

Juvenile Justice Changes

This law makes it harder for certain young people who committed serious crimes, such as mass shootings or offenses in school zones, to get their sentences changed and allows prosecutors to move some younger teens with prior convictions into adult court.

What This Bill Does

• It stops young people from asking a judge to change their life sentence if they were part of a mass shooting or hurt someone in a school zone or place of worship.
• It lets prosecutors ask for younger teenagers, aged 14-15, who have been convicted before and are now facing new serious charges, to be tried as adults instead of juveniles.

Who It Names or Affects

• Young people sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed when they were under 18 years old.
• Prosecutors who decide whether to move cases of younger teens into adult court.

Terms To Know

Mass shooting

An incident where multiple people are shot and injured or killed in a short time, usually at one location.

Limits and Unknowns

• It does not specify how many young people will be affected by these changes.
• The impact on the number of cases moved from juvenile court to adult court is unclear.

Official Summary Text

AB 1959, as amended, Patel.
Juvenile justice.
Existing law allows a person sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole who was under 18 years of age at the time of the offense to petition the court for recall of their sentence and resentencing, as specified. Existing law prohibits a person from seeking recall and resentencing pursuant to these provisions if it is pleaded and proved that the person committed certain offenses and the victim was a public safety official, including any law enforcement personnel.
This bill would additionally prohibit a person from seeking recall and resentencing pursuant to these provisions where it was pled and proved that the defendant, within the same proceeding, has been convicted of more than one offense of murder in the first or 2nd degree, that the offense constitutes a mass shooting, as defined, or that the offense was committed in
a school zone or on the property of a place of worship.
Existing law, as amended by the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016, enacted by Proposition 57 at the November 8, 2016, statewide general election, authorizes the district attorney to make a motion to transfer a minor from juvenile court to a court of criminal jurisdiction in a case in which a minor is alleged to have committed a felony when the minor was 16 years of age or older, or in a case in which a specified serious offense is alleged to have been committed by a minor when the minor was 14 or 15 years of age, but the minor was not apprehended prior to the end of juvenile court jurisdiction.
This bill would, consistent with the intent of Proposition 57, authorize the district attorney to make a motion to transfer a minor from juvenile court to a court of criminal jurisdiction when the minor is alleged to have committed certain
specified offenses when the minor was 14 or 15 years of
age.
age and was previously convicted in a court of criminal jurisdiction and is now subject to resentencing in juvenile court pursuant to specified provisions.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF