Div. Seven of this district’s Court of Appeal held yesterday that a defendant, who was sentenced to death for the 2001 slaying of a Los Angeles-area college student and to additional time based on allegations of prior periods of incarceration, may immediately seek resentencing under recent amendments to the Penal Code that retroactively invalidate most prior prison term enhancements without waiting for resolution of his automatic appeal.

Wiley is expected to address whether the sentencing court’s consideration of circumstances in aggravation based on certified records of prior convictions, beyond the bare fact of the convictions, violates Penal Code section 1170, subdivision (b)(3) or defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges that Orange County Registrar Bob Page is “concealing the unlawful registration of ineligible, non-citizen voters” by withholding sensitive personal information such as Social Security and driver’s license numbers.

California’s FAIR Plan, which covers more than 570,000 homes and businesses whose owners are unable to obtain insurance elsewhere, is illegally failing to compensate wildfire victims for the full extent of losses caused by smoke damage to their property, a judge ruled Tuesday.