People v. Brewer CA3

Filed 9/11/25 P. v. Brewer CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (Sacramento) ----

THE PEOPLE, C101337

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. 97F00253)

v.

RICHARD BREWER,

Defendant and Appellant.

Defendant Richard Brewer appeals the trial court’s dismissal of his motion for an evidence preservation proceeding under People v. Franklin (2016) 63 Cal.4th 261. After setting a hearing and without notice to the parties, the trial court summarily dismissed the motion based on our Supreme Court’s intervening decision in People v. Hardin (2024) 15 Cal.5th 834 (Hardin II). We vacate the trial court’s order and remand with directions to allow Brewer the opportunity to present his arguments for why he believes he is eligible for a Franklin hearing post-Hardin II.

1

BACKGROUND In 2001, a jury convicted Brewer of, among other things, first degree murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a)) and found true the special circumstance that he committed the murder while he was engaged in attempted robbery (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A)).1 It also found true the allegation that he personally used a firearm (§ 12022.5, subd. (a)). He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP) plus a consecutive 25 years. (People v. Brewer (Feb. 8, 2005, C040014) [nonpub. opn.].) In 2022, Brewer filed a petition for a Franklin hearing to preserve mitigating evidence related to his youth at the time of the offense. Brewer’s petition alleged that he was 24 years old when he was arrested for the underlying offense and that he was entitled to a Franklin hearing because section 3051’s exclusion of youthful LWOP offenders from parole eligibility violated equal protection principles as the Court of Appeal had held in People v. Hardin (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 273 (Hardin I), reversed by Hardin II, supra, 15 Cal.5th at page 834. In May 2023, the trial court found that Brewer’s petition satisfied the pleading requirements set forth in In re Cook (2019) 7 Cal.5th 439 and appointed counsel for him. After several unopposed continuances for the purpose of allowing defense counsel to collect evidence for the Franklin hearing, a case management conference was set for August 2024. In March 2024, our Supreme Court reversed the Hardin I decision, concluding that the inmate in that case had not shown that section 3051’s exclusion of young adult LWOP offenders violated equal protection, “either on its face or as applied to [those] serving [LWOP] sentences for special circumstance murder.” (Hardin II, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 839.) The Supreme Court in Hardin II specified, however, that it was not “foreclosing the possibility of other as-applied challenges to the statute,”