People v. Magill

• Decision Date: 03 April 1986
• Citation: 715 P.2d 662,41 Cal.3d 777,224 Cal.Rptr. 702
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 715 P.2d 662 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Janet MAGILL, Defendant and Appellant. Crim. 24635.

Page 702

224 Cal.Rptr. 702

41 Cal.3d 777, 715 P.2d 662

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Janet MAGILL, Defendant and Appellant.

Crim. 24635.

Supreme Court of California.

April 3, 1986.

As Modified May 1, 1986.

Mark D. Greenberg, Berkeley, for defendant and appellant.

Aileen Bunney, Deputy Atty. Gen., San Francisco, for plaintiff and respondent.

GRODIN, Justice.

We granted review to determine whether, under Penal Code section 1170.1, subdivision (g), ¹ the sentence of a defendant against whom an enhancement is imposed pursuant to section 12022.6 is unlimited by the double base term rule (People v. Wright (1979) 92 Cal.App.3d 811, 813, 154 Cal.Rptr. 926; People v. McClelland (1982) 136 Cal.App.3d 503, 508, 186 Cal.Rptr. 365) or whether the sentence is limited to twice the base term plus the enhancement (People v. Sequeira (1981) 126 Cal.App.3d 1, 20-21, 179 Cal.Rptr. 249). We conclude section 1170.1, subdivision (g) completely eliminates the double base term rule when, as here, the record establishes one of the four basic statutory exceptions to the double base term rule. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal, insofar as it (i) held defendant must be resentenced and (ii) remanded for that purpose. In all other respects, we affirm the judgment, 167 Cal.App.3d 4, 212 Cal.Rptr. 913.

Defendant was convicted of four counts of embezzlement and one count of obtaining money by false pretenses. Allegations of excessive loss ( § 12022.6, subd. (a)) attached to three of the embezzlement counts were found true. She was sentenced on count one to the Department of Corrections for a principal term consisting of the mid-term of two years (the base term), plus a one-year enhancement under section 12022.6, subdivision (a), and on counts two through five for subordinate terms consisting of eight months each, to run consecutively, for a total sentence of five years and eight months. Her sole claim is that her sentence should have been only five years.

Section 1170.1, subdivision (g) provides: "The term of imprisonment shall not exceed twice the number of years imposed by the trial court as the base term pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 1170 unless the defendant stands convicted of a 'violent felony' as defined in subdivision (c) of Section 667.5, or a consecutive sentence is being imposed pursuant to subdivision (c) of this section [crimes committed while in state prison], or an enhancement is imposed pursuant to Section 12022, 12022.4, 12022.5, 12022.6, 12022.7, or 12022.9 or the defendant stands convicted of felony escape from an institution in which he is lawfully confined."

Defendant claims this subdivision is ambiguous and should therefore be interpreted in her favor to preclude application of the double base term limitation only to the extent necessary to accommodate her section 12022.6 enhancement. As noted, the Courts of Appeal have split on this issue.

Wright, supra, 92 Cal.App.3d 811, 154 Cal.Rptr. 926, rejected defendant's view. Noting that "[c]ourts should give effect to statutes according to the usual and ordinary import of their language" (id., at p. 813, 154 Cal.Rptr. 926), Wright found the subdivision "clear and unambiguous." (Ibid.) "The Legislature intended a certain upper limit on the aggregate term of imprisonment 'unless' certain specified conditions exist; the presence of such conditions makes the upper limit entirely inapplicable." (Ibid.)

Sequeira, however, found the same subdivision "to be, in context, both opaque and ambiguous" (126 Cal.App.3d 1, 21, 179 Cal.Rptr. 249), and proceeded to interpret it according to what the court considered to be the Legislature's probable intent. Sequeira postulated that although the Legislature likely meant to eliminate the ameliorative effect of the double base term limitation for defendants convicted of a violent felony, or a serious prison offense, or prison escape, it must not have intended to completely do so with respect to defendants who merely trigger and suffer the specified section 12022 enhancements. Consequently, the court interpreted the subdivision as limiting the defendant's sentence to twice the base term plus enhancements. (Ibid.)

The court in McClelland, supra, 136 Cal.App.3d 503, 186 Cal.Rptr. 365, resolved the Wright-Sequeira conflict "on the Wright side." (Id., at p. 508, 186 Cal.Rptr. 365.) The court labeled as "contrived" Sequeira's assumption that the Legislature did not intend to treat enhancements like the other specified exceptions to the double base term limitation. (Ibid.)

Although the Sequeira view might have appeared plausible when that decision was filed, ² we are persuaded that the Wright approach is the correct one, and that the presence of any of the specified enhancements makes the double base term limitation entirely inapplicable. (Accord, Cassou & Taugher, Determinate Sentencing in California: The New Numbers Game (1978) 9 Pacific L.J. 5, 64-67.)

As defendant implicitly admits, and as the Sequeira court implicitly conceded, the remaining three exceptions specified in the subdivision--that the defendant was convicted of a violent felony, or a serious prison offense, or prison escape--can reasonably be interpreted only one way, namely, to eliminate completely the double base term limitation if any of the specified exceptions is present. To interpret the subdivision as completely eliminating the limitation as to exceptions one, two, and four but as only "partly eliminating" the limitation as to exception three, when all four groups of exceptions follow from the same introductory proviso, would require us to read into the statute limiting language nowhere suggested by the legislative scheme. ³ It would also require us to hold that the Legislature could not have intended to equate the specified ...