SAN DIEGO (CNS) - The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a man convicted and sentenced to state prison for assaulting and raping two women at gunpoint in San Diego was not unfairly denied a chance at early parole for youthful offenders.
Jeremiah Ira Williams was convicted of raping two women on consecutive nights in August of 2016. Prosecutors said the first victim was attacked at her University City apartment, while the second was raped at a Grantville motel.
Williams was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 100 years to life, plus 86 years and two months.
Williams was 24 years old at the time of the rapes and contends that due to his age, he should be eligible for a youthful offender parole hearing. Under California's youthful offender parole statute, early release on parole is possible for certain defendants who were under 26 when they committed their crimes.
On appeal, Williams argued he was excluded from youthful parole because his convictions fell under the "One Strike" law, which imposes harsh penalties -- including a potential life sentence -- for specific sex crimes with certain aggravating circumstances.
But the youthful parole statute does not exclude defendants convicted of murder, as long as their convictions don't include special circumstance allegations, which trigger life without parole sentences.
Williams argued this showed the law treats two types of offenders unequally with no rational basis, thus violating his equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
He previously appealed on the same grounds, but was rejected by a state appellate court.
In Thursday's ruling, the state's highest court noted that nothing in the legislative history of the youthful parole statute "specifically references the reason for the One Strike exclusion." However, the court concluded that the exclusion of One Strike offenders was related to an increased risk of re-offending and thus was "rationally related to legitimate state interests in addressing recidivism of serious and dangerous sex offenders."
Thursday's ruling was not unanimous, and included a dissenting opinion from Justice Goodwin Liu.
Liu wrote that while aggravated sex crimes like the ones Williams was convicted of "are abhorrent and deserve harsh punishment," he said excluding One Strike offenders from youthful parole "has more to do with irrational prejudice than rational policy judgment."
Liu also argued that his colleagues' references to recidivism overlooked studies that showed a higher recidivist rate for people convicted of burglary, robbery, arson, and assault, and that the majority of sex registrants who were convicted again were not convicted of new sex crimes.
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