This is a short opinion. Very short. Three-and-a-half pages.
It could maybe stand for one more paragraph.
Luis Olmos was convicted of first degree murder in 2001, so that's preexisting bad news for him. He gets additional bad news today: the Court of Appeal decides that his sentence, which was for a murder that he committed when he was 17, isn't the functional equivalent of life without the possibility of parole, so he's not entitled to file a Section 1170(d)(1)(A) petition. So denial of the petition affirmed.
The good news, though, is this. Mr. Olmos thought that he'd be sentenced to 41 years to life, and his briefs on appeal said so. But the Court of Appeal noticed -- and then says in today's opinion -- that he actually was only sentenced to 33 years to life.
So that's eight years less than he thought. We'll count that as a win for him.
It's still a long time, though. But not functionally equivalent to a sentence of life without parole. Which is why Mr. Olmos loses his appeal.
The additional sentence that I wish had been added to the opinion was simply a brief factual recitation of the relevant dates and times. I know from the existing opinion that he was convicted in 2001 for a murder that occurred in 1996. I also know that he received some pretrial custody credits since there was a prior Court of Appeal opinion about that, and I also know that Mr. Olmos was entitled to a parole hearing in December 2024.
But what I don't know, and can't precisely figure out from the opinion, is what age Mr. Olmos will be when his "33 years" runs out. Will he be 50 -- murder at 17, plus 33 years? Will he be 55-- murder at 17, conviction 5 years later, plus 33 more years? Will he be some other age given his pretrial custody credits?
I understand that his sentence isn't equivalent to an LWOP because, apparently, at some age prior to, say, 65, he'll in fact be eligible to get out (even if he doesn't receive time off for good behavior, which I suspect he has, in fact, obtained.) But it'd be very nice to know precisely which age the Court of Appeal is talking about when it holds here that Mr. Olmos' age isn't sufficient to constitute LWOP.
So just one for paragraph -- or even sentence -- maybe? If only so other judges or justices can know precisely what the holding is here.
