Error and/or relief
(Gary note: This was not a “win,” even under my generous standards, but I have included it because it instructs on the duty of the court to recalculate credit for actual days served since the prior sentencing, but the trial court does not calculate the conduct credits earned since the original sentencing.)
The trial court erred in awarding presentence conduct credit for time the defendant spent in custody between his original sentencing and the time he was resentenced following remand from his earlier appeal.
Holding:
It was error for the court to calculate credits under section 2933.1 for conduct of the defendant in custody between the date of his original sentencing and the date of his resentencing as a result of his prior appeal.
The court should have calculated the days in actual custody (along with whatever local conduct credit the defendant earned prior to his original sentencing).
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilation [CDCR] will then determine what conduct credit the defendant is entitled to following his original sentencing. An appellate remand solely for correction of a sentence already in progress does not remove a prisoner from the Director of the CDCR’s custody or restore the prisoner to presentence status. A defendant’s temporary removal from state prison to county jail as a consequence of the remand did not transform him from a state prisoner to a local presentence detainee.
When a state prisoner is temporarily away from prison to permit court appearances, he remains in the constructive custody of prison authorities and continues to earn sentence credit, if any, in that status.
Authority:
People v. Buckhalter (2001) 26 Cal.4th 20, 33–34
People v. Dean (2024) 99 Cal.App.5th 391, 396–397