California Court of Appeal Vacates Sentence Where Trial Court Imposed Sentence Under ‘One Strike’ Enhancement Statute Enacted After Crimes Were Committed
by Douglas Ankney
The Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, vacated the sentence of Santiago Gonzalo Canales and remanded for resentencing because the trial court imposed an enhanced sentence under a “One Strike” law, § 667.61, that was enacted after the alleged crimes occurred.
Canales was charged by amended information with four counts. Count 1—A lewd act (§ 288(a)) on his niece during the year following December 23, 2008; Count 2—Continuous sexual abuse of a child (§ 288.5(a))—his niece—between 2009 and 2013; Count 3—A lewd act (§ 288(a)) on his niece during the two years following December 23, 2013 while his niece was 12 or 13 years of age; and Count 4—Continuous sexual abuse (§ 288.5(a)) of his stepdaughter between 2002 and 2005 while his stepdaughter was 11 to 13 years old.
Canales’ niece was born on December 23, 2001. She testified at trial that Canales sexually molested her repeatedly from ages 7 through 13. He rubbed her breasts, vagina, and thighs. He gave her money afterwards.
Canales’ step daughter was born in 1991. She testified that Canales began molesting her when she was 11. By the time she was 12 or 13, Canales was penetrating her vagina with his penis “about once per month.” He continued to abuse her until she was almost 16. He always gave her money afterwards, and she testified that she “felt like a prostitute.”
Canales denied all allegations against him. His defense was that there was “bad blood” in the family and that the girls were lying about the alleged abuse.
His trial lasted eight days. The jury took about an hour to convict Canales on all counts and find true the “multiple-victims” allegation—implying the jury considered this an easy case to decide. Because of the multiple-victims allegation, the trial court sentenced Canales under the One Strike law to four consecutive terms of 15 years to life imprisonment for an aggregate term of 60 years to life in prison. Canales timely appealed, arguing, inter alia, that sentencing him under the One Strike law was an ex post facto violation.
The Court observed that the “One Strike law is an alternative sentencing scheme applying to certain felony sex offenses. It mandates an indeterminate sentence of 15 or 25 years to life in prison when the jury has convicted the defendant of a specified felony sex crime (§ 667.61, subd. (c) [listing applicable crimes]), and has also found certain factual allegations to be true (§ 667.61, subds, (d), (e)). People v. Anderson, 211 P.3d 584 (Cal. 2009).
In the present case, the Court observed that the “One Strike law boosted the sentence for Canales’s offenses because the jury found true the multiple-victim allegation.” § 667.61(b)(c). However, while both the niece and stepdaughter were crime victims, only the niece qualified as a One Strike victim based on the date the Legislature amended the One Strike law. That is, the offense of continuous sexual abuse against his stepdaughter occurred between 2002 and 2005 (see Count 4 of the Amended Information), but this crime was not a One Strike offense until the Legislature amended the statute in 2006, the Court explained. People v. Valenti, 243 Cal. App. 4th 1140 (2016). The “multiple-victim enhancement cannot apply when only one victim fits the statutory scheme,” so only the niece qualified.
The Court stated that both “[f]ederal and state ex post facto principles prohibit legislatures from retroactively increasing the punishment for a crime.” Collins v. Youngblood, 497 U.S. 37 (1990); People v. Grant, 973 P.2d 72 (Cal. 1999). But according to the Court, “yet that is what happened here: the trial court applied the 2006 amendment to increase punishment for a crime that ended in 2005.” Thus, because the multiple-victim allegation increased Canales’ sentencing on all four counts, the Court ruled that all four counts required resentencing.
Accordingly, the Court vacated Canales’ sentence and remanded for resentencing without application of the One Strike law. See: People v. Canales, 106 Cal. App. 5th 1230 (2024).
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