Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
James Earl Lockler returned to the Court of Appeal after a resentencing and argued that further resentencing was warranted. The appeal concerned his prior strike convictions under the Three Strikes law. His five strikes arose from a 1999 incident at a bank in Santa Barbara County in which he held five people hostage. The court's earlier decision was identified as People v. Lockler (July 7, 2009, B202381, B206138) [nonpub. opn.].
Lockler is imprisoned for crimes he committed in 2005. In September of that year, over a period of four hours, he held four women hostage at a check-cashing store under the pretense of having a bomb in his backpack. He forced some of the women to undress and repeatedly threatened to blow them up and kill them in other ways. In the 2009 opinion, the court ordered revisions to Lockler's sentence and credits but affirmed his convictions for criminal threats, false imprisonment, and falsely reporting a bomb.
In 2025, the superior court reconsidered Lockler's sentence after the passage of Penal Code section 1172.75 and the invalidation of most prior prison term enhancements. Lockler also moved to dismiss his prior strikes. The court struck a one-year prior prison term but kept the balance of the sentence intact: four concurrent third-strike terms of 25 years to life, plus one consecutive term of 25 years to life, plus five years under section 667, subdivision (a)(1), for a total of 50 years to life plus five years. Lockler claimed that People v. Shaw (2025) 18 Cal.5th 1089 required the superior court to resentence him as a second-strike offender.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal agreed with Lockler, and the prosecution conceded the issue. It explained that Shaw held that a defendant who commits a single criminal act that harms multiple victims earns one strike for Three Strikes sentencing purposes, not multiple strikes. The court's earlier decision in this case confirmed that Lockler committed a single criminal act in 1999 against multiple victims: entering a bank and holding five people hostage over an extended time period by pretending that he had a bomb in his backpack. The parties and the superior court acknowledged that all of Lockler's strikes arose from that incident, which the prosecution described as the single act of threatening five hostages with a supposed bomb.
The parties further agreed that the Court of Appeal could take judicial notice of the record and files from Lockler's past appeals, and the Court of Appeal granted Lockler's request. Applying Shaw, the court concluded that all but one of Lockler's strikes should be dismissed and that the superior court should resentence him as a second-strike offender. It quoted Shaw's rule that a trial court is required to dismiss a strike when two of a defendant's prior strikes are the result of the same act, a rule that applies when the defendant's single act harmed multiple victims.
The disposition vacated Lockler's sentence and remanded for resentencing consistent with the opinion; the cover page summarized the appeal as reversed and remanded. The court expressly declined to state any further opinion as to how or in what respect the superior court should resentence Lockler, leaving the details of the new sentence open on remand.
Key Takeaways
- A single criminal act that harms multiple victims produces one strike for Three Strikes sentencing purposes under People v. Shaw.
- All five of Lockler's challenged strikes arose from the same 1999 bank hostage-taking incident.
- The prosecution conceded that Shaw required Lockler to be resentenced as a second-strike offender.
- The Court of Appeal granted Lockler's request for judicial notice of the record and files from his past appeals.
- The court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing without prescribing how the superior court should structure the new sentence.
Why It Matters
The decision applies Shaw's single-act rule to a case in which five prior strikes were based on one hostage-taking incident involving five victims. Because the earlier appellate record established that common factual basis and the prosecution conceded the issue, the court concluded that all but one strike should be dismissed and that the superior court should resentence Lockler as a second-strike offender.
The ruling changes the sentencing framework on remand but does not select a replacement sentence. By vacating the existing sentence while expressing no further opinion on the appropriate resentencing choices, the court left the superior court to determine the details consistently with the opinion.