MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. — In a published decision with statewide implications for California resentencing proceedings, the California Court of Appeal, Sixth Appellate District, has reversed a Monterey County Superior Court order denying Enrique Nuñez Lopez’s resentencing petition, ruling that once a trial court issues an Order to Show Cause under Penal Code section 1172.6, it must conduct a full evidentiary hearing rather than limit its review to a single issue.
In 2014, a jury found Lopez guilty of second-degree murder and related gang offenses stemming from “a fight he took part in involving several Sureño gang members,” the opinion states. The court sentenced him to 22 years to life in prison.
Lopez filed his first resentencing petition in 2019 under Senate Bill 1437, legislation that narrowed California’s felony murder rule and created a process allowing eligible defendants to seek resentencing under current law. A prior appellate panel affirmed the denial of that petition, finding “substantial evidence demonstrating that Lopez’s actions were the proximate cause of Fraga’s death” and “that Lopez knew that his conduct endangered the life of another and acted with conscious disregard for life,” the opinion notes.
In 2023, Lopez filed a successive petition, arguing that recent appellate decisions, including People v. Reyes and People v. Pittman, warranted reconsideration of his case. The trial court concluded that Reyes did not require reconsideration but found Lopez had made a prima facie showing under Pittman, which allows courts to consider whether youthful brain development affected a defendant’s ability to form implied malice. The court issued an Order to Show Cause but stated it was doing so “for the limited purpose of evaluating whether Lopez’s youthfulness affected his ability to form the requisite mental state for implied malice murder.”
At the subsequent hearing, the trial court said it had “previously found the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Lopez was guilty of implied malice murder, which was affirmed by the Court of Appeal” and was “not reassessing this issue.” It denied the petition, finding that “youthful factors due to brain development at the time of the age of 23 simply seem to be lacking here.”
Lopez appealed, and the Court of Appeal concluded the trial court’s limited approach was legally incorrect. The appellate court held that once an Order to Show Cause is issued under section 1172.6, the statute requires a complete evidentiary hearing to determine whether the prosecution can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the petitioner remains guilty of murder under current California law.
“The statutory language does not limit the evidentiary hearing to mental state only, but requires a determination of whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the entire offense,” the court wrote.
The court further explained that “once a trial court issues an order to show cause on a resentencing petition and sets the matter for an evidentiary hearing, the prosecution must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the petitioner is guilty of murder or attempted murder under California law as amended.”
The appellate panel emphasized that once an Order to Show Cause is issued, both parties must be allowed to “offer new or additional evidence to meet their respective burdens,” and the trial court must consider “the entirety of admissible evidence” in deciding whether the prosecution has met its burden under current law.
The court was explicit in rejecting the trial court’s narrower approach.
“We find nothing in section 1172.6, the Pittman decision itself, or in any authority … that supports a trial court limiting its inquiry in such a manner when conducting a new section 1172.6 hearing,” the opinion states.
Although Lopez argued that People v. Reyes represented an intervening change in the law governing implied malice murder, the Court of Appeal did not decide that question. Instead, it held that because the trial court had already issued an Order to Show Cause, it was required to conduct a complete hearing under section 1172.6 regardless. On remand, however, the appellate court instructed the trial court to conduct the new hearing “consistent with the requirements of section 1172.6, subdivision (d)(3) and current law, which includes but is not limited to, the guidance provided in Reyes.”
The court also addressed Lopez’s Assembly Bill 333 arguments but declined to reach them. It found those claims were not properly before the court because Lopez’s notice of appeal “only lists the denial of his section 1172.6 resentencing petition and makes no reference to the section 1172.1 resentencing order.”
That separate resentencing proceeding had already reduced Lopez’s sentence from 22 years to life to 17 years to life through a stipulated agreement under Penal Code section 1172.1, a proceeding distinct from the resentencing issues before the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal reversed the denial of Lopez’s section 1172.6 petition and remanded the case, directing the trial court to issue a new Order to Show Cause and conduct a full evidentiary hearing to determine whether the prosecution can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lopez is guilty of second-degree murder under current California law.
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