MARSH: Families worn out by appeals

From Page A1 juvenile status at the time makes him eligible for a parole hearing in 2037.

Then came Proposition 57, approved by voters in 2016, which stripped district attorneys of the ability to directly file juvenile cases in adult court — as was permitted at the time of Marsh’s arrest — and instead required a judge’s ruling following a fitness hearing.

In light of that measure, Marsh underwent a retroactive hearing in Yolo Superior Court to determine whether his case should have been tried in juvenile court and sentenced accordingly, making him eligible for release from prison at age 25.

Marsh, who is serving his sentence at the R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, turned 25 last May.

Judge Samuel McAdam rejected Marsh’s resentencing bid in October 2018, his ruling later upheld by the Third Appellate District.

Marsh pursued a new opportunity with Senate Bill 1391, which repealed existing legislation allowing 14and 15-year-old youths to be tried as adults in California, regardless of the circumstances of their crimes. Marsh was a month shy of his 16th birthday at the time of the Davis murders.

At issue: whether the judgment in Marsh’s case was final when SB 1391 took effect on Jan. 1, 2019, more than four years after his Yolo County conviction.

The appellate court dismissed Marsh’s appeal in September 2021, ruling his judgment became finalized back in 2018, making him ineligible for resentencing in juvenile-court jurisdiction.

Marsh’s appellate attorney, Mark Greenberg, petitioned the California Supreme Court to review the matter. The court granted a review but set the case aside pending another matter, People v. Padilla, an appeal of a 1982 murder case that also explored the issue of finality and whether recent law should apply retroactively.

The Supreme Court punted the Marsh case back to the Third District Court of Appeal to reconsider its prior ruling in light of the Padilla decision, which in June 2022 granted the now40-year-old defendant a juvenile-court fitness hearing under Prop. 57.

Greenberg welcomed the order, telling The Davis Enterprise at the time that “the Supreme Court decision on Padilla supports Mr. Marsh’s argument for retroactivity. We’ll see if the Third District agrees.”

But the development came as grim news to Yolo County prosecutors and the victims’ families, who thought Marsh’s appeals were finished.

“While our father raised us to believe that due process was very important in allowing all avenues of appeal to be exhausted, it’s very difficult to be the victim in a situation and have this constant churn of a process,” Mary Northup, Chip Northup’s daughter, said in an interview following the court’s decision.

“It’s hard enough to go through it once, but to continually remember the facts and have them publicized, it has an impact on our lives,” she said.

“When do the families ever get a break? It’s nonsense that a criminal of this nature should ever be allowed to walk the streets again,” added Sarah Rice, Maupin’s granddaughter. “We just want to move forward and heal, and these court appeals and reconsiderations don’t allow for it properly. Let him serve his time.”