In re Stoneroad

In In re Stoneroad (2013) 215 Cal.App.4th 596, the Court concluded that the inability to remember committing an offense is not determinative. In Stoneroad, "notwithstanding the petitioner's acceptance of full responsibility for his criminal act and unquestioned remorse, the overriding issue for the panel was the extent to which petitioner's inability to remember committing his offense obstructed his ability to understand the factors that caused the criminal act." (Id. at p. 627.) The court explained that "an inmate's lack of insight into the causes of his criminal conduct cannot rationally be inferred from his inability to remember the conduct where, as in this case, he acknowledges his factual, legal and moral responsibility for the criminal act, and has expressed genuine remorse." (Id. at p. 629, 653 no evidence that it was "extraordinarily unusual" for a person to have no recollection of the crime in the circumstances or that such was "rationally indicative of current dangerousness"; In re Young (2012) 204 Cal.App.4th 288, 308; see also In re Juarez (2010) 182 Cal.App.4th 1316, 1341 inmate's "failure to recall the details of his commitment offense or certain previous criminal activities has no bearing on his current dangerousness in light of his taking responsibility for the crime and his substance abuse problems, the sincerity of which is not disputed". As the court in Stoneroad reasoned: "No evidence in the record supports the purely speculative proposition . . . that a person who does not remember committing a crime cannot understand the factors that caused him to commit the offense regardless whether he accepts full responsibility and is genuinely remorseful. . . ." (215 Cal.App.4th at p. 629.) When the Board or the Governor "considers a factor related to the commission of the life offense to be predictive of current dangerousness, 'it must articulate why that is the case. "'Immutable facts such as an inmate's criminal history' . . . do not by themselves demonstrate an inmate 'continues to pose an unreasonable risk to public safety." (Lawrence, supra, 44 Cal.4th at p. 1221.)' " ' " (Stoneroad, supra, at p. 630.)