State High Court Endorses Davis’ Denials of Parole

The California Supreme Court gave Gov. Gray Davis wide latitude Monday to deny parole to inmates, even if they have unblemished prison records and the state parole board and lower courts say they should be released.

The 5-2 decision makes it highly unlikely that scores of inmates convicted of murder will be paroled while Davis is governor.

In an opinion written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, the court said that Davis need only show that “some evidence” exists to support his decision to deny parole. The gravity of the crime itself, the court said, could qualify as sufficient evidence.

The court held that Davis met this standard when he denied parole to Robert Rosenkrantz, 35, who, at age 18, killed a Calabasas schoolmate for exposing Rosenkrantz’s homosexuality. Two lower courts had decided that Rosenkrantz, a model prisoner, should be paroled.

But the state high court said Davis’ determination that Rosenkrantz had “brutally murdered” the victim after “a full week of careful preparation, rehearsal and execution” was enough to keep Rosenkrantz locked up indefinitely.

Davis has overturned parole board recommendations for about 160 convicted murderers since taking office and agreed to parole only two, both of them women who had killed men who battered them.

“It effectively slams the door on a model prisoner who has been rehabilitated and is no longer a threat to the public,” said Donald Specter, Rosenkrantz’s lawyer. “And it virtually eliminates parole for life prisoners in California during the Davis administration.”

About two dozen inmates whose parole dates Davis has revoked are now pursuing court appeals, and Monday’s decision is expected to give Davis the victory in those disputes.

Davis, in a prepared statement, commended the court. He said he takes his authority to overrule parole recommendations “very seriously and will continue to review each case thoroughly.”

Davis had asked for a ruling that would prevent courts from reviewing his parole decisions altogether. The court did not go that far.

The court stressed, however, that it was granting only “limited” judicial review of parole decisions under an “extremely deferential” standard.

“Some evidence supports the governor’s determination that the circumstances of petitioner’s crime, as well as his conduct before he surrendered to the authorities, tend to establish that petitioner is not suitable for parole,” George wrote.

The high court rejected a finding by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge that Davis has a blanket policy of denying parole to convicted murderers. The court cited a passage from a Los Angeles Times story that ran April 9, 1999.

Davis told The Times that he believes murderers, even those with second-degree convictions, should serve life sentences. “If you take someone else’s life, forget it,” Davis was quoted as saying.

But the state high court cited Davis’ approval of parole for the two women as evidence that he has no blanket policy.

That Davis has overturned every other parole decision may simply indicate “that the governor is more stringent or cautious than the [parole] board in evaluating the circumstances of a particular offense and the relative risk to public safety,” the court said.

Rosenkrantz was sentenced to 17 years to life for the second-degree murder of Steven Redman in 1985. Redman had told Rosenkrantz’s father that Rosenkrantz was gay, and the father threw the son out of the house.

A week later, Rosenkrantz confronted Redman and demanded that Redman retract the statement. Rosenkrantz said that Redman refused and that he shot Redman 10 times with an automatic weapon outside the victim’s house in Malibu.

Herbert Rosenkrantz, Robert’s father, later blamed himself for his son’s actions because the father had rejected the son as a result of the homosexuality.

In a statement faxed to The Times on Monday, the elder Rosenkrantz likened the ruling to a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

“Because Robert cannot change the facts of the crime, but can only change himself, he could be doomed to spend the rest of his life in prison regardless of the degree of rehabilitation he accomplishes,” Herbert Rosenkrantz said. “Our hearts bleed for him.”

But he added that he and his family had not lost hope. “We want the world to know that, in spite of today’s decision, we will never give up on Robert.” Rosenkrantz’s lawyers are considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and, if that fails, could petition Davis’ successor.

While in prison, Rosenkrantz has earned a college degree and tutored other prisoners. Among those who have advocated his release are the judge who presided at his murder trial and a detective who investigated the shooting.

The state’s Board of Prison Terms, which decides whether to parole inmates convicted of first- and second-degree murder and other serious crimes, found Rosenkrantz suitable for release in 1996. Board administrators overturned the decision while Davis’ predecessor, Pete Wilson, was governor.

The parole board did not recommend Rosenkrantz’s release again until it was ordered to do so by Superior Court Judge Paul Gutman in Los Angeles, which acted on a petition by Rosenkrantz. Davis then overruled the board.

In upholding Davis’ decision Monday, the state high court observed that “the nature of the prisoner’s offense” alone can be enough to deny parole.

The governor “properly may weigh heavily the degree of violence used and the amount of viciousness shown by a defendant,” George wrote.

Under that reasoning, there will be “virtually always” enough evidence for Davis to overturn parole decisions, said Specter, Rosenkrantz’s lawyer.

“It basically says the crime itself is a sufficient reason to deny parole, and these are first- and second-degree murders,” Specter said. “They are the most egregious crimes.”

But the court said that, in some circumstances, the crime by itself might not be enough to justify a denial of parole if there was no evidence of violence beyond the minimum necessary to win a conviction.

This finding troubled Justice Carlos Moreno, who wrote separately to express his qualms. He said that Rosenkrantz might have been found suitable for parole if he had been convicted of first-degree murder, instead of second-degree, because the level of violence did not exceed the minimum needed for a first-degree conviction. First-degree murder, unlike second-degree, requires premeditation and deliberation.

“There will come a point, which already may have arrived, when petitioner would have become eligible for parole if he had been convicted of first-degree murder,” Moreno wrote. “Future denials of petitioner’s parole may warrant judicial reappraisal.”

Justices Joyce L. Kennard and Ming W. Chin dissented, arguing that it was unconstitutional to deny Rosenkrantz parole because state law has changed since he committed the murder.

Until voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1988, governors could not override a parole board’s recommendation for release. Laws generally are applied only to cases that occur after the law’s passage.

“For over two centuries, a bedrock principle of American criminal justice, embedded in both the United States Constitution and the California Constitution, has been that no state may pass an ex post facto law, which includes a law that increases the punishment for a crime after it has been committed,” Kennard wrote.

Because Rosenkrantz committed his crime at a time when the parole board had final say over release dates, he should be subject to the parole board’s decision, not the governor’s, Kennard wrote.

Citing a two-year period, she observed that the board had denied parole in about 99% of the cases it had reviewed.

“The board has hardly opened the floodgates; nor should we,” she wrote. “But imposing after the fact a new barrier to parole that potentially keeps in prison even those scarce few who convince the board they have earned it violates the prohibition against ex post facto laws.”

One of the next likely cases to challenge the governor is pending in the state Court of Appeal in San Francisco, said a prisoner rights attorney, Keith Wattley, of the nonprofit Prison Law Office. It involves Raymond Skinner, 68, who has served 20 years for killing his wife during a cocaine-induced psychosis, he said.

Wattley said his client has compiled a perfect record in prison. The board agreed to parole him, but Davis blocked it.

“We are talking about the cream of the crop and Davis doesn’t like them,” Wattley said.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Robert Wilson, who argued the Rosenkrantz case on behalf of the governor, said he was pleased with the outcome of In re Robert Rosenkrantz, S104701. He said he did not know whether the decision would end parole during Davis’ term for people convicted of murder.

“Each case has to be decided on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the ruling ensures that courts will rubber-stamp Davis’ parole decisions.

Davis is saying, “ ‘You will just rot in jail for the rest of your life,’ and the court is saying that is fine,” Eliasberg said.

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Times staff writer Carl Ingram contributed to this report.