“The Homeless, Drug Addiction, Retail Theft Reduction Act would take out the bad efforts of Prop. 47 that made all drug possessions misdemeanors,” said Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey. “It decriminalized drugs which drives addition which impacts mental health issues and homelessness. Particularly since 2015, we’ve seen homelessness increase 51% in California while homelessness in the nation has gone down 11%. Does this tie in to Prop. 47? I believe so. This is not a red or blue issue, it’s a California issue.”

Under Prop. 47, passed by voters on Nov. 5, 2014, some non-violent property crimes including commercial burglary, possession of stolen property and grand theft crimes, where the value does not exceed $950, were reduced from felonies to misdemeanors. It also made some drug possession offenses, including possession of a controlled substance, into misdemeanors. Prop. 47 also provides that past convictions for these charges may be reduced to a misdemeanor by a court.

“We have got to stop the madness,” said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. “I and other public safety officials warned of the damaging effects of Prop. 47. And, now we’re seeing those effects with increased theft and skyrocketing overdoses. This reform act is a chance to change that and I hope people will get behind it.”

The Homeless, Drug Addiction, Retail Theft Reduction Act seeks to reverse significant parts of Prop 47 by allowing felony charges to be brought against those with two or more drug or theft convictions for possessing certain drugs, including fentanyl and for thefts under $950. It would also provide addiction and mental health services for treatment-mandated felony charges but also increase sentences for some other drug and theft crimes.

Oroville Police Chief Bill LaGrone said the reform act would “benefit the community by allowing us, law enforcement, to better do our job.”

“It would reduce retail theft and hold those who choose not to follow the law accountable,” he said.

Oroville City Councilors Tracy Johnstone and Shawn Webber as well as Assistant Police Chief Jess Darnell were among those staffing the table at the 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
signature collection pop-up event. About 140 signatures had been collected during the first hour and half, according to Webber.

“It’s been busy,” said Webber. “I think Prop. 47 was written with the best intentions but the criminal element will do what they do and find loop holes in the law so they think ‘we can do anything we want’ because the drug offenses and thefts under $950 are just misdemeanors.”

Smith and Johnstone concurred with Webber. Smith said Prop. 47 had “unintended negative consequences that have caused suffering for individuals, families and businesses. Reforming Prop. 47 is long overdue.” Johnstone echoed the sentiments saying it was “time to make a change and hold people accountable.”

Among those who signed the petition Friday was Mayor Dave Pittman who said conditions under Prop. 47 are “not sustainable. Things have to change, period.”

State organizations that support the Homeless, Drug Addiction, Retail Theft Reduction Act include the California District Attorneys Association, the California Police Chiefs Association, Crime Victims United and the California Sheriffs Association among others.

John Waveng Her, 53, of Chico, was accused of shooting and killing his wife of 30 years, Xe Lor, on Sept. 27, 2023 at a relative’s house where family members had gathered to discuss a separation or divorce between the couple.

Lor had recently moved out of the family home, and she petitioned the court for a temporary domestic violence restraining order eight days before the shooting, Ramsey said.

Ramsey said Her, during this family meeting, pulled a handgun from underneath his jacket, shot Lor twice in the driveway of the house as she was leaving, then attempted to shoot himself.

The bullet grazed of Her’s head and he fell to the ground, Ramsey said. Holding on to the gun, Her shot Lor twice more.

After the shots, family members took Her’s handgun and held him down; Lor was taken to the hospital but died from her wounds, Ramsey said.

Ramsey said Chico police investigators collected video evidence that showed the incident.

Her was previously convicted for threatening his family in 2021, barring his right to possess firearms, Ramsey said.

Seven children are survived by Lor, the youngest is 9 years old. Three of the children witnessed the shooting, Ramsey said.

Ramsey said Her faces 25 years to life in prison at his sentencing April 3.

According to a press release issued Thursday night by Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, Chance Andre Vincent, 28, of Oroville was convicted of two charges of assault with a deadly weapon after attacking two homeless men within a 54-hour time period.

The first man who was stabbed testified in court that he and Vincent left his camp at Riverbend Park briefly and upon returning at around 1 a.m., Vincent stabbed him in the back twice.

“The victim was saved by firefighters who were nearby taking care of a small grass fire and responded to his screams for help,” Ramsey said in his release. “The victim was taken to Enloe Hospital where he received emergency trauma care for a collapsed lung.”

The second stabbing occurred in Chico at the Amtrak Depot where police officers discovered a man with multiple stab and slash wounds both on his front and back. Both of the men stabbed were treated for collapsed lungs.

A criminalist from a laboratory in Redding said during the trial that Vincent’s DNA was found on the handle of the knife used to stab the men, the release said.

“I am thankful the Oroville victim remained cooperative with law enforcement and my office from the day of his horrific attack through his testimony at trial,” Ramsey said. “These very strange, senseless crimes highlight the dangers afflicting the people in our community who are struggling with the ongoing homelessness crisis.”

Vincent was accused of attacking an officer at the Butte County Jail and is awaiting trial for that case. His sentence for the stabbing is set for Feb. 15.

Man who shot two people at bar gets eight years in prison

Heriberto Hernandez-Figueroa, 29, of Chico received an eight-year prison sentence after being convicted of a drive-by shooting at a bar in Chico in which two people were shot.

A press release issued Wednesday by Ramsey said the incident occurred in March 2023 and the two individuals who were shot, one in the arm and the other in the leg, were taken to the hospital where they were treated and eventually released.

It was determined by detectives that the incident was likely gang-related based on Hernandez-Figueroa’s history. During the incident, he drove slowly by the bar, located at the 900 block of East Avenue but failed to hit his intended target, the release said.

During the trial, Ramsey said, security footage was used to link Hernandez-Figueroa to the shooting.

“Surveillance from the bar showed Hernandez-Figueroa had been inside the bar with a large group of people and had been in an argument with the intended victim who was later standing on the sidewalk with others,” Ramsey said in the release.

One of the men shot was a bouncer at the bar who wrote an impact letter to presiding Judge Jesus Rodriguez saying that he lost function in his arm and hand and said he had to move out of California to be closer with family members for a better chance at recovery.

The release said Rodriguez ordered that Hernandez-Figueroa pay restitution to the man he shot totaling more than $17,000.

Ramsey’s release said Hernandez-Figuria was convicted of selling drugs and being a felon in possession of a gun in 2018.

Woman who pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter gets prison evaluation

Shelby Alvarez, 27, of Chico, who pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in December, was sent to a state prison for diagnostic evaluation on Wednesday.

According to a press release issued Wednesday by Ramsey’s office, Alvarez was driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.25% on the night of Dec. 16, 2023 in the wrong lane on Highway 99 while texting when she entered a head-on collision with another vehicle, killing 21-year-old Octavio Alcaraz-Jimenez. Alcaraz-Jimenez was thrown from his vehicle in the crash and died at the scene. Alvarez received minor injuries from her seatbelt.

During the sentencing on Wednesday, Alcaraz-Jimenez’s family members provided statements to the judge and asked for more than just the 10-year maximum sentence.

Ramsey said in the release that this was Alvarez’s first offense, which was an argument put forth by the public defender.

“Alvarez’s public defender pointed out to the judge that Alvarez had no criminal record and expressed extreme remorse for her actions,” Ramsey said. “However, in a probation report given to the judge today, an experienced probation officer expressed some doubt as to whether Alvarez’s remorse was genuine and also noted that Alvarez’s statement to CHP officers that she had tattooed a friend’s name who was supposedly killed by a drunk driver on her arm was false.”

It was also noted in the release that Alvarez is a single mother.

The release said Judge Corie Caraway had Alvarez sent to prison for a 90-day evaluation and afterward the court will have a recommendation from experts as to whether Alvarez should go to prison or if probation would be suitable.

Man gets life in prison in cold case murder

A Magalia resident who pleaded no contest in a 2017 homicide case received a life sentence in prison on Wednesday after seven years.

Dustin Troy Kimball, 48, of Magalia received the sentence after being arrested in relation to a cold case going back to June 2017 when Jennifer Coleen Moore, 41, of Orland was murdered.

A press release issued by Ramsey said the Glenn County Sheriff’s Office received a missing persons report for Moore with those close to her saying she was last seen leaving with Kimball, who was her boyfriend at the time. It became a cold case when no body was recovered.

That was until Jan. 10, 2021 when human remains were located in Forest Ranch near Highway 32. After being analyzed by members of Chico State’s anthropology program, the remains were identified as Moore.

“In previous hearings, Butte County prosecutors presented evidence that established Kimball was the last person to be seen with Moore and that he picked her up from her home in Orland and drove her to the Chico Walmart — the last location they were seen together,” Ramsey said in his release. A search of Kimball’s internet search history revealed that less than an hour before picking Moore up from her home in Orland, he was searching things such as ‘jugular vein’ and ‘how to cut a jugular vein.'”

Detectives used Kimball’s cell phone location to determine that he was in the area where Moore’s remains were found for roughly an hour.

Moore’s family members gave testimonies during the sentencing to Judge Rodriguez.

Ultimately, Kimball was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Gary Stephen Maynard, 49, pleaded guilty to three counts of arson to federal property in Sacramento federal court before U.S. District Judge Daniel J. Calabretta.

Maynard, who is being held without bail in the Yuba County Jail, was arrested in August 2021 after a three-week investigation that included the use of a tracking device hidden on his vehicle by authorities who followed his movements throughout Northern California for hundreds of miles, court papers say.

“It appeared that Maynard was in the midst of an arson-setting spree,” court papers filed after his arrest say.

Maynard worked teaching part-time at various schools, including Santa Clara University, where he was an adjunct faculty member in the sociology department from September 2019 to December 2020, and at Sonoma State University, where he was a lecturer in the fall of 2020 specializing in criminal justice, cults and deviant behavior

He described himself in court Thursday as a “college professor” with a PhD in sociology and a history of being diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome — a disorder on the autism spectrum — and identified himself as “Dr. Gary Maynard” as he stood before the judge in orange jail garb and a waist chain.

Plea agreement documents filed in court Thursday say a search of Maynard’s vehicle after his arrest “recovered a number of devices, such as lighters, that could be used to set a fire.”

The search also turned up digital devices with “several hours” of audio and video recordings of Maynard “discussing arson, making threatening statements about arson., stating that he was going to commit arson, and, based on Maynard’s statements and the sound of matches being struck, appearing to attempt to commit arson,” court documents say.

Maynard first came to authorities’ attention on July 20, 2021, when the Cascade Fire was reported on the western slope of Mount Shasta.

Mountain bikers reported the fire and helped keep it from spreading beyond 100 to 200 square feet in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Siskiyou County.

A U.S. Forest Service investigator who responded to the scene found Maynard under a black Kia Soul that had its front wheels stuck in a ditch and its undercarriage centered over a boulder, court papers say.

Maynard told the Forest Service investigator he was a professor, and a witness in a nearby vehicle later told authorities that Maynard seemed angry, had displayed a large knife and was “mumbling a lot and having bipolar-like behavior,” court papers say.

The next day, a second fire erupted at 2:50 a.m. on Mount Shasta near the Everitt Memorial Highway, and investigators later found tire tracks similar to those made by the Kia hatchback, court papers say.

Investigators tracked Maynard’s movements through his electronic benefits transfer, or EBT, card used for public assistance and by placing a tracking device on his vehicle, court papers say.

Maynard was tracked to an area where the Ranch Fire and Conard Fire burned in the Lassen National Forest and was arrested while he was found inside an emergency closure area in place for the Dixie Fire, court papers say.

“He entered the evacuation zone and began setting fires behind the first responders fighting the Dixie Fire,” court papers say of the blaze that was the second-largest in California history and burned nearly 1 million acres in five counties.

After being booked into the Lassen County Jail following his arrest, Maynard maintained he had nothing to do with the fires, court papers say.

“I’m going to kill you, f—— pig!” he screamed, according to court documents. “I told those f—— I didn’t start any of those fires!”

Maynard faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, and is scheduled to be sentenced May 9.

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According to a press release issued Friday by the Eastern District of California’s United States Attorney’s Office, Jason Morgan, 46, of Chico was found to be in possession of child pornography in 2020 while under federal supervision from previous convictions related to distributing the materials.

Morgan had also previously been found guilty of using a minor to engage in sexual activities for producing the materials.

“This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse,” the press release reads.

Dangelo Charles, 25, was sentenced Tuesday in Butte County Superior Court on felony counts of manslaughter, reckless driving and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to a press release from Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey.

According to Ramsey, Charles was driving south on Highway 149 near Highway 99 with a woman and her 3-year-old son when he fell asleep behind the wheel around 2:30 p.m. Aug. 13, 2023; they traveled straight across the gravel median into northbound traffic, and crashed head-on into a pickup.

Two people in the pickup, Oscar Vasquez and Ana Pareja-Estrada, were both found dead upon police arrival; Charles, the mother and her son were extricated with serious injuries, Ramsey said.

During the rescue effort, a loaded handgun was found in Charles’ front seat — he’d previously served a prison term for armed robbery in Sacramento County, the release said.

In Charles’ probation report, he stated that he was up in the late night before driving his girlfriend and her child toward Sacramento, and he admitted smoking cannabis in the morning, according to the release. Hospital blood tests found some cannabis but no alcohol.

The mother has since fully recovered, but according to doctors her child was permanently paralyzed from the waist down from  in the crash, the release said.

Judge Corie Caraway sentenced Charles to 15 years and four months in jail. According to the release, Caraway said state law mandates shorter terms when defendants are 25 or younger — however the judge found that justice would “not be served by a lower term” and that public safety required a longer sentence.

Prop 1 is a state proposal with the goal of funneling funds toward emphasizing housing for the mentally ill who are homeless. It rearranges the structure of 2004’s Mental Health Services Act, which placed a 1% tax on millionaires to go toward behavioral health services, by mandating that a significant portion of the funding would go toward housing services specifically.

“It is a very significant proposition because it does put money toward housing,” Kennelly said. He himself cannot advocate for or against the proposition, but said he plans to inform stakeholders of the implications should the proposition pass or not.

Kennelly said that as it stands now, about 22% of his department’s budget comes from the Mental Health Services Act. Currently, the funding is divided into Community Support and Services at 75%, Prevention and Early Intervention at 20% and Innovation at 5%. He noted that 20% of this funding can also be diverted into supporting facilities, training and technology.

If Prop 1 is passed, this funding structure would have to change to the following:

• Behavioral Health Services and Support: 35%

• Full Service Partnerships: 35%

• Housing: 30%

Without Prop 1, the county only utilizes about 2% of its Mental Health Services Act funding for housing.

In his presentation before the board, Kennelly said that many of the services provided by his department and its contractors would have to see cuts. Programs directly overseen by Kennelly’s department consist of crisis services, wellness centers, prevention, outpatient services, vocational services and the Resilience Empowerment Support Team. Contracted programs that would take a hit include Youth For Change Sixth Street, the Torres Shelter, the Stonewall Alliance Center, the Hmong Cultural Center, Wayfinder, Dream Catchers, the National Alliance of Mental Health and more.

Supervisor Bill Connelly asked Kennelly if there was any latitude to prevent funding shortfalls for these programs to which Kennelly said the state indicated some additional money for prevention services, though it seems murky as to what that will look like.

Supervisor Tami Ritter aired her concerns that some of the programs that will see cuts were instituted and approved by the board as well as the fact that jurisdictions likely don’t have plans on where to put the housing money once approved.

“I think that when you see the ads and read the info on this proposition it sounds really appealing because all of us want housing, but the problem is that the 30% we have toward housing doesn’t exist because we don’t have these programs ready to go,” Ritter said. “… It just seems like such bad planning.”

During the item’s public comment period, people spoke in defense of the current funding structure as well as the programs and partners that it funds including Breann Arbogast of the Iversen Wellness and Recovery Center who asked that the public and the board consider the ramifications of Prop 1 if passed and how it could affect local services.

No action was taken on the item as it was an informational presentation that did not require a vote.

Proposed housing by right expansion

Immediately after Kennelly’s presentation, both he and Development Services Director Paula Daneluk led an agenda item asking the board to consider changing a zoning ordinance to essentially allow for by-right public housing for the mentally ill to go from six residents to 14. The request was rooted in a state mandate that will require counties to have a certain number of beds available for the moderate to severely mentally ill be the end of 2024.

Kennelly said Butte County will need at least 100 more beds by the end of the year, and shifting the zoning to allow up to 14 people by right per household would aid in the process. Currently, the state requires that county zoning in low to medium-density housing allow for six people to live by right in these types of community housing. In this case, this would mean two people per one bedroom with the minimum beds for the maximum occupancy being seven. Kennelly noted that the home would also be supervised 24 hours a day.

Ultimately, the request was shut down 4-1.

Board members were quick to present their concerns with the proposal with worries about these homes surrounding other homeowners as well as potential issues with septic tanks in low-density areas.

Connelly explained that his concerns stemmed from homeowners looking to raise a family only to have community homes for the mentally ill popping up throughout their neighborhood.

“Maybe not from the actions of (the people living in community housing) but from the cars going in and out,” Connelly said. “I can’t support it. That’s what’s going to happen unless there is some limit on density. It could trap some people who are totally innocent. They’re not bad people; they just don’t want to be in that environment.”

Supervisor Peter Durfee mirrored Connelly’s sentiment, applying it to areas in Chico traditionally populated by college students while Supervisor Doug Teeter said septic systems likely wouldn’t be able to maintain a household of 14 people plus supervising staff.

Ritter attempted to split the difference and proposed housing up to 10 people by right, which was seconded by Supervisor Tod Kimmelshue, but that motion died 3-2. The board eventually voted 4-1, with Ritter being the sole no vote, to keep the zoning code as it is, which was originally what the county’s planning committee recommended.

“We can’t be complaining when we say we have no boarding care and no providers because it is not financially viable for them,” Ritter said after the vote. “This is going to bite us in the butt.”

Kennelly said he understood where the board was coming from but was disappointed by the outcome.

“Without that level of housing, we would have to send those individuals out of the county to receive that level of care,” Kennelly said.

As far as the financial impact of sending mentally ill people to other counties, the cost will likely be significantly more than handling it within Butte County, Kennelly said.

“I would have to look at the financial impact of a six-bed boarding care (home) and what they call a daily patch rate that I’d have to pay to make sure that board care can operate and be financially viable,” Kennelly said. “That cost is probably going to be about $94,000 a year per person or per bed. So that adds up very quickly to half a million dollars a year for six-bed boarding care. Those costs to the county are costs that I could be putting toward treatment and other services but will have to be spending on housing.”

The Butte County Board of Supervisors generally meets at 9 a.m. on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at its chambers located at 25 County Center Drive, Suite 205 in Oroville. Meetings are free and open to the public. 

Community forums

To inform the public, Kennelly and his department have scheduled community forums to answer questions from the public regarding Proposition 1. Behavioral Health Services held its first community forum Tuesday evening at the Masonic Lodge in Chico but has three more planned for Oroville, Gridley and Paradise. They are scheduled for the following dates from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the local public libraries:

Oroville: Feb. 8

Gridley: Feb 13

Paradise: Feb 22

Iles had pleaded guilty in December to killing his mother back in January 2022 with a shotgun. According to a press release issued Wednesday by Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, Iles had a clash with his mother and step-father over the shotgun claiming they had tampered with it but the argument died down after he shot the gun outside. Later in the day, Iles called 911 and said he had shot his mother.

The release said Iles told law enforcement that he believed he had been poisoned by her and that he tried to perform life-saving measures after calling 911.

“Iles is an Air Force veteran with no previous criminal record,” Ramsey said in the release. “He was honorably discharged in 2010 and returned to Oroville to live with his mother and stepfather. After his return home, Iles suffered from paranoid thoughts and delusions, believing the government and others, including his mother, were trying to kill him. Iles was ultimately diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia while seeking mental health treatment through the Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic in Chico.”

Three psychologists were appointed by the court to provide Iles with an evaluation and two agreed that he was insane during the incident. It was Judge Jesus Rodriguez who declared Isles insane. He was also prescribed schizophrenia medication but it was determined that he had stopped taking the medicine by the time of the shooting.

Iles is due back in court on Feb. 7, 2024 at which point the court will decide where he will go for treatment. Although Iles will not serve prison time, he faces the possibility that he will be committed to a state hospital for the rest of his life.

The U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on whether cities can legally ban or limit unhoused people camping in public spaces — a case that could grant California officials more power to sweep homeless camps.

The case, originating from the Oregon city of Grants Pass, could overturn or narrow a five-year-old precedent from a federal appeals court that limited how much cities in Western states could criminalize those who sleep on the streets when there aren’t enough shelter spaces available.

In the older case — Martin v. Boise — the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2018 that it’s cruel and unusual punishment to criminalize camping on public property when the people in question have nowhere else they can legally sleep. The ruling was binding on West Coast cities, where rising rates of unsheltered homelessness that later spiked during the pandemic were driving local politicians to pass public camping prohibitions. In 2019 the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of that case.

Since then, California cities have often been subject to federal lawsuits after passing restrictions on when and where the unhoused can set up camps. Relying on the ruling in the Boise case, judges have delayed or outright halted camping bans from being enforced in cities including San Francisco, Sacramento, Chico and San Rafael, finding that the cities had failed to provide adequate alternate shelter options for the residents they were about to sweep from their encampments.

The situation has led city officials —and Gov. Gavin Newsom — have complained that the Boise ruling has tied their hands from addressing the state’s sprawling encampments, arguing they need to sweep camps both for health and safety reasons and for the well-being of encampment residents. It’s led liberal officials into the unusual position of asking a majority-conservative court for more power to penalize the homeless for sleeping outside. In a high-profile case that has particularly drawn Newsom’s ire, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this month backed a judge’s 2022 ruling restricting San Francisco’s enforcement of certain bans on sleeping on sidewalks and in parks, because the city hadn’t shown there were other locations that were “realistically available” to unhoused residents before a city sweep.

“California’s elected officials who seek in good faith to improve what often appears to be an intractable crisis have found themselves without options, forced to abandon efforts to make the spaces occupied by unhoused people safer for those within and near them,” Newsom’s administration wrote to the Supreme Court in September.

The case is being closely watched by officials across California and could widely affect how they respond to encampments. Newsom’s statement was part of an amicus curiae brief the administration filed in the case. Amicus briefs are legal briefs submitted by parties not directly involved in a given case, but who typically take one side or the other in a case. The majority of the amicus briefs filed in the case were from California entities and, though more than a dozen mostly-Republican-led state governments also filed a brief, Newsom was the only governor to weigh in.

In addition to Newsom’s, other filings include the California State Association of Counties, the California State Sheriffs’ Association, district attorneys for Sacramento and San Diego counties, the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Bay Area Council, and even the Brentwood Community Council.

“The Boise case is being abused by activists, and some cities have used it as an excuse for their complete failure to solve the homelessness crisis and clean up our streets,” Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) said in a statement Friday. “Removing that excuse will allow us to begin holding politicians accountable for their inaction and incompetence.

“I am confident the Supreme Court will agree there is no right to vagrancy and to fill our parks and sidewalks with trash, needles and human waste.”

But advocates for the unhoused say the Boise ruling is clear. They point out that most cities have hardly enough shelter beds to accommodate their homeless populations and that shelters are often near-full on any given night, and say banning public camping or restricting it does more harm than good by pushing homeless people from location to location.

“All you need to do to be compliant with (the Boise case) is stop using our criminal system as the stick here to solve this problem,” said Will Knight, decriminalization director at the National Homelessness Law Center, last year.

In particular, the court rulings have led to a patchwork of interpretations across the state on what qualifies as the “adequate shelter” cities must provide before sweeping homeless camps. The Oregon case that the Supreme Court agreed to hear could provide some clarity — or so California officials hope.

While the Boise ruling said the government can’t broadly ban any public camping without giving people alternative places to stay, Newsom and city officials across California said in briefs filed before the Supreme Court that they want to know whether they can set restrictions on times or locations where camping is allowed.

Other questions include whether cities can criminalize public camping for those whom they call “voluntarily” homeless — people who refuse offers of shelter. And California cities have asked the court to rule on whether, in order to ban camping, they need to have a suitable shelter space available for every individual unhoused person no matter their circumstances, or simply have general shelter beds open the day they sweep a camp.

But U.C. Berkeley law professor Jeffrey Selbin, who has studied statewide responses to homelessness, said claims from both sides are overblown.

Selbin said the existing cases neither fully tie cities’ hands, as some politicians say, nor provide a broad right to sleep outside, as some advocates say. He defended the status quo in which cities sometimes must seek guidance from federal judges to know whether their local rules are constitutional under the Boise decision.

In Chico, for example, a federal district judge in 2021 ruled that sending unhoused residents to camp on an unshaded airport tarmac on the outskirts of town was not “adequate” enough shelter to justify banning encampments in town. In response, the city settled the case by setting up a site of tiny homes where it can offer encampment residents a room before proceeding to sweep their camp.

That case, Selbin said, provided direction to other cities, showing that the court cases have “required local jurisdictions to take seriously what it means to provide basic shelter and options.”

The Supreme Court is unlikely to provide that kind of “micromanaging,” Selbin said, predicting instead that the justices will simply overturn the 2018 precedent set by the Boise case and allow cities to broadly criminalize encampments.

“It’s just going to return California to the whack-a-mole of prioritizing punishment over services,” he said.

The Enterprise-Record contributed to this report.

Leanard Wilson, 41, of Chico was given 25 years to life in prison by Butte County Superior Court Judge Kristen Lucena, according to a press release issued Thursday by District Attorney Mike Ramsey.

Ramsey said Wilson had two previous violent crime convictions going back to 2003 when he had to serve 14 years of prison time. Wilson was on parole when he was charged with rape in 2021.

Wilson was seen by a neighbor punching a woman in the face on Aug. 8, 2021, according to the release. The woman, named Jane Doe in the release and in court, tried to run away from Wilson and go inside her home but he broke in after and threatened her before cornering her.

While she was trapped in the bedroom, her roommates called the police. Doe was able to escape her room and get help from the officers, the release said.

“A life sentence is a just outcome for a man who has consistently and violently attacked others. In this case, he assaulted his 69-year-old neighbor unprovoked, forced his way into her home and bedroom, and sexually assaulted her,” Ramsey said. “Offenders like Wilson are why we need the Three Strikes Law.”

Wilson will also be registered as a sex offender for life.