People v. Buckhalter

• Decision Date: 09 July 2001
• Docket Number: No. S086220.,S086220.
• Citation: 25 P.3d 1103,26 Cal.4th 20,108 Cal.Rptr.2d 625
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joe BUCKHALTER, Defendant and Appellant.

108 Cal.Rptr.2d 625

26 Cal.4th 20

25 P.3d 1103

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joe BUCKHALTER, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S086220.

Supreme Court of California.

July 9, 2001.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing August 29, 2001.

Richard B. Lennon, Los Angeles, under appointment by the Supreme Court; and Peter Dodd, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, David P. Druliner, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Carol Wendelin Pollack, Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters and Susan Kim, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

BAXTER, J.

We confront a narrow issue, which has nonetheless produced conflict in the Courts of Appeal, concerning the trial court's duty to calculate custody credits upon a sentencing remand. Defendant, a career criminal, was convicted in 1996 of multiple felonies committed on a single occasion. The court sentenced him to three consecutive indeterminate life terms under the "Three Strikes" law (Pen.Code, §§ 667, 1170.12).¹ He was committed to prison, and was delivered into the custody of the Director of Corrections (Director) to begin service of the sentence.

Subsequently, the Court of Appeal remanded on sentencing issues only. It directed the trial court to stay two of the three life sentences and to determine whether to impose certain additional enhancements. At some point, defendant was transported from prison to county jail to permit his participation in the remand proceedings. On remand, defendant again received an indeterminate life term as a third strike offender, the court imposed the additional enhancements, and defendant was redelivered to prison. The sentencing court awarded defendant the custody credits, including jail work and conduct credits (hereafter good behavior credits), he had earned up to the time he was originally sentenced. However, the court refused to recalculate the credit total. The court rejected defendant's theory that his more recent local confinement while he awaited the remand hearing was also jail detention "prior to the imposition of sentence" (§ 4019, subd. (a)(4)), and that he was thus entitled to additional good behavior credits available to persons in such presentence status. (Ibid; see also § 2900.5, subd. (a).)

Defendant appealed, raising, among other issues, the denial of additional presentence credits. The Court of Appeal upheld the trial court's refusal to recalculate credits, ordered minor modification of the judgment in another respect, and otherwise affirmed. For its conclusion that a trial court need not recalculate presentence custody credits upon a sentencing remand, the Court of Appeal relied upon its own prior decision in People v. Myers (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 305, 81 Cal.Rptr.2d 564 (Myers) and expressly disagreed with the contrary holding of People v. Thornburg (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 1173, 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 288 (Thornburg).

We granted review limited to the issue whether "a trial court must recalculate custody and conduct credits following remand for resentencing." We conclude as follows: When, as here, an appellate remand results in modification of a felony sentence during the term of imprisonment, the trial court must calculate the actual time the defendant has already served and credit that time against the "subsequent sentence." (§ 2900.1.) On the other hand, a convicted felon once sentenced, committed, and delivered to prison is not restored to presentence status, for purposes of the sentence-credit statutes, by virtue of a limited appellate remand for correction of sentencing errors. Instead, he remains "imprisoned" (§ 2901) in the custody of the Director "until duly released according to law" (ibid.), even while temporarily confined away from prison to permit his appearance in the remand proceedings. Thus, he cannot earn good behavior credits under the formula specifically applicable to persons detained in a local facility, or under equivalent circumstances elsewhere, "prior to the imposition of sentence" for a felony. (§ 4019, subds. (a)(4), (b), (c), (e), (f); see fn. 6, post.) Instead, any credits beyond actual custody time may be earned, if at all, only under the so-called worktime system separately applicable to convicted felons serving their sentences in prison. (§§ 2930 et seq., 2933.) Defendant is serving an indeterminate term of 25 years to life under the Three Strikes law, consecutive to a determinate term of five years. Under the Three Strikes law, however, he is not eligible to earn prison worktime credits against the indeterminate portion of his sentence.

While the Court of Appeal correctly held defendant was not entitled to additional good behavior credits as a presentence detainee, it erred insofar as it concluded that the trial court need not recalculate and credit the actual time defendant had served on his sentence prior to the modification. We will therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and will remand for proceedings consistent with the views expressed herein.

FACTS

Around 1:00 p.m. on May 24, 1994, for the second time in a week, students at a dental school saw defendant wandering in a cubicle area. Defendant was wearing a white lab coat. Two other students discovered that their wallets, containing cash totaling between $60 and $70, were missing from the area. Later the same day, defendant was seen near the school's loading dock, wearing a white T-shirt and gray jeans. When confronted, defendant ran. School police detained and searched him. He had $69 on his person.

A jury convicted defendant of second degree commercial burglary (§ 459) and two felony counts of petty theft with a prior (§§ 484, 666). The jury also found that defendant had four prior violent or serious felony convictions within the meaning of the Three Strikes law (§§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 1170.12, subds. (b), (c)) and five prior felony convictions for which defendant had served separate prison terms (§ 667.5, subd. (b)).²

On July 30, 1996, the trial court sentenced defendant to third strike terms of 25 years to life for each of the three current felony convictions, and made the sentences consecutive, resulting in a total sentence of 75 years to life. At the sentencing hearing, held 40 days after our decision in People v. Superior Court (Romero) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497, 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 789, 917 P.2d 628 (Romero), the court acknowledged its discretion to dismiss prior strikes but expressly declined defendant's request that it do so. The court credited defendant with 1,195 days of presentence custody, consisting of 797 actual days of presentence jail confinement and 398 additional days of presentence good behavior credit. Defendant was committed to state prison.

Defendant appealed, raising only sentencing issues, including certain technical challenges to his prior strikes.³ The People raised additional sentencing arguments. In a 1997 decision, the Court of Appeal rejected both parties' contentions except in two respects.

The Court of Appeal agreed with defendant that the Three Strikes law did not require consecutive life terms for the 1996 burglary and theft convictions arising from a single incident, and, indeed, that section 654 prevented multiple punishment for these crimes. Thus, the Court of Appeal held, the two life sentences for theft must be stayed pending service of the similar sentence for burglary.

On the other hand, the appellate court agreed with the People that under section 667.5, subdivision (b), the sentencing court was required to impose a consecutive one-year enhancement for each prior separate prison term found by the jury unless the court exercised its discretion to dismiss the enhancements and explained on the record the mitigating circumstances that motivated that sentencing choice (see § 1170.1, former subd. (h)).⁴ Defendant's sentencing was incomplete, said the Court of Appeal, because, so far as the record disclosed, the trial court had done neither.

The Court of Appeal disposed of the appeal as follows: "The case is remanded to the trial court which is ordered to exercise its discretion with respect to its findings that appellant suffered five prior felony convictions [resulting in separate prison terms] within the meaning of section 667.5, subdivision (b). The trial court is ordered to stay imposition of sentence on counts 2 and 3 [the theft convictions], said stay to become permanent upon completion of the term in count 1 [the burglary conviction]. In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed." The Court of Appeal's decision was filed on October 14, 1997, and its remittitur issued on December 19, 1997.

Even in advance of the remittitur, the trial court attempted, in defendant's absence, to comply with the Court of Appeal's directions on remand. In a November 1997 minute order, the court purported to amend the July 30, 1996, judgment by staying two of the three life sentences previously imposed, but adding consecutive one-year enhancements for each of four prior prison terms. Defendant then sought a writ of habeas corpus from the Court of Appeal, protesting the trial court's attempt to sentence him in absentia and without counsel. When the Court of Appeal noticed its intention to grant relief in the first instance, the trial court relented and scheduled a full sentencing hearing. At some point, defendant was transported from prison to county jail to facilitate his participation in the remand proceedings.

After many continuances and extensive briefing by both defendant and his standby counsel, the remand hearing took place on October 9, 1998, before Judge West, who had previously sentenced defendant in 1996. The trial court stated it had read or reread the parties' prehearing briefs and motions, the 1996 probation report, a supplemental probation report dated September 25, 1998, and letters submitted by various individuals on defendant's behalf.

Defendant was permitted to represent himself. He as...