People v. Batten

Filed 3/17/25

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FOUR

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent, A169597

v.

(San Francisco City

ANNETTE GAYLENE BATTEN, & County

Defendant and Appellant. Super. Ct. No.

CT-23012184)

Annette Gaylene Batten served a life term for murder and was released

on lifetime parole in 2017. In 2023, she admitted two parole violations.

Penal Code 1 section 3000.08, subdivision (h) required the court to remand her

to the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

(CDCR). She appeals, pointing out that under a statute enacted in 2020,

someone convicted of murder but released on parole after July 2020 would

have been placed on parole for only three years and would therefore have

been eligible for punishments other than mandatory remand to the CDCR.

(§§ 3000.01, as enacted by Stats. 2020, ch. 29, § 18, 3000.08, subds. (f) & (g).)

Batten argues this disparity violates equal protection principles under strict

scrutiny or, in the alternative, rational basis review. We agree with the

People that rational basis review applies and that there is a rational basis to

treat the two groups of inmates differently. We therefore affirm.

1 Undesignated statutory citations are to the Penal Code.

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BACKGROUND

Batten was convicted of first degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to

life in prison. She was released on parole in August 2017. She generally

performed well on parole, and her parole agent recommended her for an early

discharge from parole. But at a parole revocation hearing in December 2023,

Batten admitted two violations of the conditions of her parole based on an

incident in 2021: driving under the influence and failing to inform her parole

agent of her resulting arrest. The trial court ordered Batten’s parole revoked

and remanded her to the custody of the CDCR and the jurisdiction of the

Board of Parole Hearings (Board) for future parole consideration. In June

2024, the Board denied Batten’s request for parole for one year. 2

DISCUSSION

Pursuant to section 3000.1, subdivision (a), any inmate sentenced to

life in prison for first or second degree murder is released on parole, if at all,

for the rest of the inmate’s life. If an inmate released on lifetime parole

under section 3000.1 is found to have violated the conditions of parole, the

trial court must remand the parolee “to the custody of the [CDCR] and the

jurisdiction of the Board of Parole Hearings for the purpose of future parole

consideration.” (§ 3000.08, subd. (h).) By contrast, when most other parolees

violate their parole conditions, “a trial court generally has the discretion to

modify or revoke parole, including the authority to sentence the person to

county jail for up to 180 days, or refer the person to a reentry court or other

evidence-based program.” (People v. Reed (2024) 103 Cal.App.5th 43, 51

(Reed); § 3000.08, subds. (f) & (g).)

2 We grant Batten’s unopposed request for judicial notice of the record

of her parole hearing. (Evid. Code, § 452, subd. (c) [judicial notice may be

taken of the official acts of the executive department of the state].)

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The Legislature enacted section 3000.01 in 2020. (Stats. 2020, ch. 29,

§ 18.) That statute applies to inmates released from state prison on or after

July 1, 2020 (§ 3000.01, subd. (a)), and states that “notwithstanding any

other law” (id., subd. (b)) and with two exceptions not relevant here, “[a]ny

inmate sentenced to a life term shall be released on parole for a period of

three years” (id., subd. (b)(2)). (See Reed, supra, 103 Cal.App.5th at p. 52.)

Reed, supra, 103 Cal.App.5th at page 53, recognized a conflict between

sections 3000.01 and 3000.1 for inmates released after July 1, 2020, in that

both statutes purport to establish the term of parole for inmates released

after life sentences for first or second degree murder. Reed held that section

3000.01, the later-enacted statute, takes precedence because of the

“ ‘notwithstanding any other law’ ” clause, so that the term of parole for an

inmate sentenced to life in prison for murder who is released after July 1,

2020, is three years. (Reed, at p. 53.) Reed then reasoned that because such

an inmate is not released on lifetime parole, when the inmate violates the

terms of parole, the mandatory remand provision in section 3000.08,

subdivision (h) does not apply and the trial court has authority to choose from

the alternative sanctions under section 3000.08, subdivisions (f) and (g).

(Reed, at p. 54.)

Batten admits she does not benefit from section 3000.01 and was

subject to mandatory remand to the CDCR under section 3000.08,

subdivision (h) because she was released on parole before July 1, 2020. But

she contends that the different treatment of inmates released before and

after July 1, 2020, violates equal protection principles of the state and federal

constitutions.

When a party challenges a law “drawing distinctions between

identifiable groups or classes of persons, on the basis that the distinctions

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drawn are inconsistent with equal protection, . . . [t]he only pertinent inquiry

is whether the challenged difference in treatment is adequately justified

under the applicable standard of review.” (People v. Hardin (2024) 15 Cal.5th

834, 850–851 (Hardin).) Batten first argues that the strict scrutiny standard

applies because the issue affects her fundamental interest in personal liberty,

meaning freedom from incarceration. This is incorrect. Her argument rests

on People v. Olivas (1976) 17 Cal.3d 236, 251, which stated that a personal

liberty interest is a fundamental interest second only to life itself. Olivas

applied strict scrutiny to a statute that allowed a trial court to sentence a

defendant between 16 and 21 years old and tried as an adult to a longer term

in the California Youth Authority than the defendant would have faced if

sentenced as an adult. (Id. at pp. 239–241, 243.)

However, our Supreme Court has made clear that “Olivas’s language

should not be interpreted so broadly as to require strict scrutiny ‘whenever

one challenges upon equal protection grounds a penal statute or statutes that

authorize different sentences for comparable crimes, because such statutes

always implicate the right to “personal liberty” of the affected individuals.’ ”

(People v. Williams (2024) 17 Cal.5th 99, 123.) “A defendant . . . ‘does not

have a fundamental interest in a specific term of imprisonment or in the

designation a particular crime receives.’ ” (People v. Wilkinson (2004)

33 Cal.4th 821, 838.) As a result, when a party challenges a classification

that does not involve a suspect class and does not implicate any interest like

that at issue in Olivas itself, in which an individual faced a longer

punishment when sentenced as a juvenile than as an adult, our Supreme

Court has instead applied rational basis review. (Ibid.) “Application of the

strict scrutiny standard [outside those contexts] would be incompatible with

the broad discretion the Legislature traditionally has been understood to

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exercise in defining crimes and specifying punishment.” (Ibid.) Thus, the

Supreme Court has applied rational basis review to a challenge to statutes

punishing a battery on a custodial officer without injury more severely than a

battery on a custodial officer with injury (ibid.), and statutes allowing early

release from custody for inmates convicted at a young age of certain crimes

but not others (Williams, at pp. 110, 123–124). Because Batten’s equal

protection challenge does not concern a suspect class or an interest like that

in Olivas, we apply rational basis review.

“Rational basis review ‘sets a high bar’ for litigants challenging

legislative enactments. [Citation.] The reasons for this lie at the heart of our

democratic system of governance. ‘Coupled with a rebuttable presumption

that legislation is constitutional, [rational basis review] helps ensure that

democratically enacted laws are not invalidated merely based on a court’s

cursory conclusion that a statute’s tradeoffs seem unwise or unfair.’

[Citation.] [¶] Under this deferential standard, we presume that a given

statutory classification is valid ‘until the challenger shows that no rational

basis for the unequal treatment is reasonably conceivable.’ [Citation.] The

underlying rationale for a statutory classification need not have been ‘ever

actually articulated’ by lawmakers, nor ‘be empirically substantiated.’

[Citation.] Evaluating potential justifications for disparate treatment, a

court reviewing a statute under this standard must ‘treat the statute’s

potential logic and assumptions far more permissively than with other

standards of constitutional or regulatory review.’ [Citation.] ‘If a plausible

basis exists for the disparity, courts may not second-guess its “ ‘wisdom,

fairness, or logic.’ ” ’ [Citation.] ‘[T]he logic behind a potential justification

need [not] be persuasive or sensible— rather than simply rational.’ ”

(Hardin, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 852.)

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Batten contends it is irrational to remand her to the CDCR because she

had performed well on parole and was mostly successful at reintegrating into

society. She asserts that there is no clear indication in the legislative history

why the Legislature chose not to apply section 3000.01 to people like her who

were released before July 1, 2020. She contends the trial court should have

had the authority under section 3000.08, subdivisions (f) and (g) to select the

most appropriate punishment for her parole violation.

Batten’s arguments invite us to perform precisely the type of second-

guessing of policy choices that rational basis review is designed to avoid.

Even if we were to agree with Batten that her record on parole suggests her

parole violation was an aberration from an otherwise encouraging record of

progress in reintegrating into society, it would not matter. The question is

whether there is any rational reason why the Legislature could have chosen

to make section 3000.01 operate only prospectively from July 1, 2020. The

People offer several rationales, but the most obvious one is that when the

Board is determining whether to offer parole to an inmate, it does so in part

based on conditions of treatment or control on parole. (Cal. Code Regs., tit.

15, § 2402.) The Board could decide that parole would not be appropriate for

some inmates if they would only be supervised for three years after release,

while parole would be appropriate if the term were longer. Likewise, the

Board could also determine that some inmates would only be suitable for

parole if subject to the heavy consequence of a mandatory remand to CDCR

custody for a parole violation. The Legislature could reasonably decide that

upending these Board considerations by changing the term of parole for such

inmates or releasing them from the mandatory consequences for a parole

violation would be unwise, and it could therefore rationally choose to make

section 3000.01 operate prospectively only.

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Batten’s primary response to the rationales the People offer is to point

out there is no support for them in the legislative history. This is true but

irrelevant; “[t]he underlying rationale for a statutory classification need not

have been ‘ever actually articulated’ by lawmakers.” (Hardin, supra,

15 Cal.5th at p. 852; see ibid. [under rational basis review, courts must

“ ‘treat the statute’s potential logic and assumptions far more permissively

than with other standards of constitutional or regulatory review,’ ” italics

added].)

Batten also argues it is manifestly unfair to treat inmates differently in

parole revocation proceedings based only on the date on which they were

released on parole. She notes that she was released on parole in 2017 and

complied with her parole conditions until 2021, when her parole violation

triggered the mandatory remand provision in section 3000.08, subdivision (h).

In Reed, by contrast, the inmate was released in 2016, violated his parole

conditions and was remanded to the CDCR in 2017, was paroled again in

2021, and in 2022 and 2023 was found again to have violated the conditions

of parole, but was not subject to mandatory remand because of section

3000.01. (Reed, supra, 103 Cal.App.5th at pp. 47, 50, 54.) Batten concludes

it is unjust that she was remanded to the CDCR because she complied with

her parole conditions until her 2021 violations, while Reed was not subject to

the mandatory remand in 2021 despite violating his probation conditions

twice, once in 2017 and again after rerelease.

Batten’s single parole violation does compare favorably with Reed’s

multiple violations. But the difference between Batten and Reed is that the

Board presumably was aware when it released Reed the second time in 2021

that he would not be subject to mandatory remand for any future parole

violations, while the Board could have had no inkling of such a possibility

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when it released Batten in 2017. The Legislature could have rationally

decided not to invalidate the Board’s reasoning retroactively by freeing all

existing parolees like Batten from the mandatory remand requirement.

Besides, as the People point out, Batten ignores the fact that she herself will

benefit from section 3000.01 and be free of the mandatory remand provision

in section 3000.08, subdivision (h) whenever she is next released on parole. If

she were to violate her conditions of parole again, like Reed did, the trial

court would have the authority to select the appropriate punishment, just

like the trial court in Reed.

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

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_________________________

Brown, P. J.

We concur:

_________________________

Streeter, J.

_________________________

Goldman, J.

A169597, People v. Batten

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Trial Court: San Francisco City and County Superior Court

Trial Judge: Hon. Harry M. Dorfman

Counsel:

Shaghayegh Dinata-Hanson, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for

Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Sara J. Romano, Assistant Attorney General,

Maria G. Chan and Janine W. Boomer, Deputy Attorneys General, for

Plaintiff and Respondent.

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