A man convicted of a felony for stealing a car might get that conviction reduced to a misdemeanor if the car is worth less than $950, the California Supreme Court decided yesterday.
The unanimous decision comes after a case interpreting Proposition 47, the dangerous 2014 ballot measure that reduced certain drug and theft felonies to misdemeanors.
Two years before Prop. 47, a man named Timothy Wayne Page was convicted for violating a law that makes driving or taking a car without the owner's consent a felony.
Justice Leondra R. Kruger said that Prop. 47 lets Page have his felony conviction reduced to a misdemeanor if he can prove that the car is worth $950 or less.
Page was ordered by a San Bernardino County judge to nearly 11 years in prison for taking the vehicle, resisting an officer, and resisting while driving dangerously.
His sentence also took into account the fact that he had prior felonies. The decision by the California Supreme Court overturned rulings by lower courts.