Pedro T., In re
| Decision Date | 22 March 1993 |
| Docket Number | E011227,Nos. E009895,s. E009895 |
| Citation | 14 Cal.App.4th 453,17 Cal.Rptr.2d 564 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Previously published at 14 Cal.App.4th 453, 19 Cal.App.4th 890, 24 Cal.App.4th 764, 29 Cal.App.4th 917 14 Cal.App.4th 453, 19 Cal.App.4th 890, 24 Cal.App.4th 764, 29 Cal.App.4th 917 In re PEDRO T., A Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. PEDRO T., Defendant and Appellant. |
These consolidated matters raise a simple issue which appears to be one of first impression. After a juvenile court has fixed the maximum term of confinement on several allegations either admitted or found true, electing to run the several terms concurrently, may it subsequently direct that the terms run consecutively to each other, when the minor is found to have committed yet another offense? Put another way, can later events justify a modification of a maximum term of confinement? Based on the authority to change, modify, or set aside any order conferred by Welfare & Institutions Code section 775 1, we answer in the affirmative. We also reject the contention, raised in a supplemental brief, that the minor is entitled to the benefit of an amendment to Vehicle Code section 10851, effective January 1, 1993, which reduces the maximum punishment from four to three years.
Although appellant minor, Pedro T., has a long and relatively complicated history of involvement with the juvenile court, the nature of his contention on appeal permits us to disregard the details. We commend counsel for his concise statement of the relevant facts, which we adopt with minor modifications.
1. In appeal No. E009895, appellant stole a car. He then escaped from placement.
2. In appeal No. E011227, he again escaped from placement.
Although no issue is raised with respect to No. E009895, the court's actions in that matter must be briefly described. On August 5, 1991, after making true findings on allegations of vehicle theft and escape, the court duly fixed the maximum term of confinement pursuant to section 726, subdivision (c). The result was a figure of four years and four months, being four years--the upper term--for vehicle theft (Veh.Code, § 10851)--and a consecutive four-month term on the escape charge. (§ 871.) The court directed that "the other matters that are before the Court will run concurrent to one another"; this referred to various sustained allegations on prior petitions. Although the court made a commitment of the minor to the Youth Authority, this commitment was ordered stayed and the minor was placed at Twin Pines Ranch.
Following the minor's next escape, the commitment to the Youth Authority was effectuated. In addition to imposing a new, consecutive, four-month term for this escape, the court ordered that "all other violations as set forth on the computation sheet are to run consecutive to the base term [i.e. the vehicle theft]" with the result that the maximum term of confinement was fixed at six years and six months; had the court not altered the miscellaneous previously-imposed terms from concurrent to consecutive, the maximum would have been four years and eight months.
The petition alleging the last escape included the notification that the District Attorney intended to rely upon previously sustained petitions for aggregation of the maximum periods of confinement.
First, there is no dispute that either computation, standing alone, would be proper. When a minor is removed from the custody of his parents, he cannot be held in physical confinement for longer than the maximum term of imprisonment applicable to an adult convicted of the offense or offenses which support the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. (§ 726.) Aggregation of terms stemming from multiple petitions is expressly permitted, but the court has the discretion to run the terms concurrently or consecutively. (In re Jesse F. (1982) 137 Cal.App.3d 164, 168, 186 Cal.Rptr. 841.)
However, appellant contends by analogy to adult penal law that the court had no jurisdiction to alter the maximum term of confinement as previously determined. He points out that where a court imposes sentence upon an adult offender and suspends execution upon a grant of probation, it may not thereafter modify the sentence when probation is revoked. (People v. Arguello (1963) 59 Cal.2d 475, 476-477, 30 Cal.Rptr. 333, 381 P.2d 5; In re Nafe (1965) 237 Cal.App.2d 809, 813, 47 Cal.Rptr. 457.) Noting that his placement at Twin Pines Ranch was made in connection with the court's explicit warning that a failure to comply with the conditions imposed by the court would result in a commitment to the Youth Authority, he likens his situation to that of an adult on probation, and argues that the court had no power later to alter the maximum time of confinement fixed at the time of his placement at Twin Pines Ranch. 2
Respondent, on the other hand, argues that the trial court properly exercised the authority given to it by section 775, which provides that "[a]ny order made by the court in the case of any person subject to its jurisdiction may at any time be changed, modified, or set aside, as the judge deems meet and proper, subject to such procedural requirements as are imposed by this article." 3 It notes that the statute is unqualified and places no restrictions on the court's power to modify a previous order. As the minor was notified that the People intended to seek aggregation of terms (see In re Michael B. (1980) 28 Cal.3d 548, 554, 169 Cal.Rptr. 723, 620 P.2d 173), respondent concludes that the procedure was proper.
To begin with, we do not find respondent's cited authority dispositive on the issue of the extent of the trial court's authority under section 775. In People v. Najera (1990) 222 Cal.App.3d 1507, 272 Cal.Rptr. 413, the court dealt with a resentencing after a commitment to the Youth Authority pursuant to section 1731.5 [] was recalled on the recommendation of the director of the Youth Authority. (§ 1737.) Although respondent cites the case for the principle that section 775 contains no restriction on modification to reflect a greater maximum term of confinement, the case does not so hold.
In Najera, the defendant argued that the court had no jurisdiction to impose a sentence "harsher" than the one originally imposed. The argument is somewhat puzzling, because in terms of actual confinement, the resentencing resulted in a shorter term than that specified at the time of the Youth Authority commitment. (222 Cal.App.3d at p. 1516, 272 Cal.Rptr. 413.) The opinion suggests that the defendant's focus was actually on the later decision to impose a prison term in lieu of a Youth Authority commitment, rather than any power to increase the actual term of confinement. (Ibid.) In this respect, the decision is supported by the analysis that the recalling court must logically have the power to impose a prison sentence, because in many cases the reason for recall is that the defendant has been found unsuitable for further rehabilitation in the Youth Authority.
Before the 1975 amendment of section 1737, the court committing an offender to the Youth Authority under section 1731, unlike the juvenile court or the court sending a defendant to prison, had no power whatsoever to recall the sentence no matter how improvident it was made to seem. (See Pen.Code, § 1168; Welf. & Inst.Code, §§ 775, 779; People v. Getty (1975) 50 Cal.App.3d 101, 107, 123 Cal.Rptr. 704.) The Najera court observed that the intent of the amendment was to bring the court's power, with respect to a section 1731 commitment, in line with that established by the other two statutory provisions. Although it rejected the defendant's contention that Penal Code section 1168, with its prohibition on a more severe resentencing, applied under section 1737, it does not explicitly state that section 1737, as expansively construed, parallels the court's power under sections 775 and 779. That is, although Najera holds that under section 1737, the court may impose a harsher sentence--a holding made, we reiterate, in the context of comparing a Youth Authority to a prison commitment, not that of length of confinement--it does not expressly rely on the extent of the juvenile court's power under sections 775 and 779 to reach this result.
The other case upon which respondent relies, In re Antonio A., supra, 225 Cal.App.3d 700, 706, 275 Cal.Rptr. 482 contains the broad statements that where a grant of juvenile "probation" is revoked, "the entire underlying order is subject to modification" [citing section 775], and "any given supplemental petition can result in modification of an order itself the product of earlier modification...." Antonio A. concerns the extent of due process and statutory protections required on the hearing of a supplemental petition filed to support a revocation of probation. The quoted statements merely reflect the obvious, as discussed below when we direct our attention to section 775. The case is not authority for the specific scope of that statute.
On the other hand, we recognize that, as appellant concedes, a juvenile offender is not entitled to the automatic application of all favorable rules of adult criminal procedure. (In re Dorothy B. (1986) 182 Cal.App.3d 509, 518, 227 Cal.Rptr. 472; see also People v. Najera, supra, 222 Cal.App.3d at p. 1516, 272 Cal.Rptr. 413.) Thus, even if an order fixing the maximum term of confinement is analogous to a...
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