Error and/or relief
The defendant was sentenced to prison terms of 60-to-life plus 13 years under both the Three Strikes law (section 667) and the Habitual Offender provisions of section 667.7. The sentence included 13 years for enhancements. The judgment is modified to strike the great bodily injury enhancement imposed under section 12022.7(a) and the two prior serious felony enhancements imposed under section 667(a). On the amended abstract of judgment form, the court should indicate in section No. 8 that the defendant was sentenced pursuant to both section 667.7 and the Three Strikes law.
First Holding:
As relevant here, section 667.7 defines a habitual offender as any person convicted of a felony in which the person inflicted great bodily injury as provided in section 12022.53 or 12022.7, or personally used force which was likely to produce great bodily injury, who has served two or more prior separate prison terms as defined in section 667.5 for the crime of assault with a deadly weapon. A habitual offender with two prior separate prison terms shall be sentenced to life in prison and shall be ineligible for parole for a period of time calculated as the longest of three options: (1) 20 years; (2) the determinate term that would be imposed under section 1170, including any enhancements; or (3) any period prescribed by Section 190 or 3046. In other words, a habitual offender is not eligible for parole for a minimum of 20 years and for at least the duration of the sentence that would otherwise be imposed for the crime, including applicable enhancements.
[Gary note: The minimum term was set at 60 years, which was arrived at by tripling the minimum 20 years to life set by section 667.7 in keeping with section 667(e)(2)(A)(i), which sets the minimum term for Three Strikes sentences at “three times the term otherwise provided as punishment for each current felony conviction” if that produces the greatest Three Strikes sentence. The third option listed above–the reference to section 3046–is what makes that the applicable minimum term under section 667.7.]Authority:
PEN 667.7
PEN 3046(a)(2) [(a) An inmate imprisoned under a life sentence shall not be paroled until he or she has served the greater of the following: … (2) A term as established pursuant to any other law that establishes a minimum term or minimum period of confinement under a life sentence before eligibility for parole.]
Second Holding:
Section 667.7 is a self-contained sentencing scheme for habitual violent offenders. Because section 667.7 ensures that a habitual offender’s parole ineligibility lasts at least as long as the corresponding determinate sentence would, including enhancements, a sentencing court may not impose determinate sentence enhancements to further lengthen this period of parole ineligibility.
Authority:
People v. Jenkins (1995) 10 Cal.4th 234, 241
People v. Victor (1991) 227 Cal.App.3d 518, 524-526
People v. Tuggle (1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 147, 157-158, disapproved on another ground in Jenkins, at p. 252
Third Holding:
Permitting determinate enhancements to be imposed on top of a habitual offender life sentence would lead to absurd, anomalous, results. Section 667.7 expressly authorizes courts to use applicable enhancements to calculate the offender’s hypothetical determinate sentence. If the total exceeds 20 years, the determinate sentence defines the offender’s minimum parole eligibility. Thus, if the determinate sentence, including enhancements, for habitual offender A equaled 21 years, this would become his minimum term. Since the enhancements were used to calculate this actual minimum term, the court could not recycle the enhancements to add another five or ten years. If the determinate sentence, including enhancements, for habitual offender B, a less serious offender, did not exceed 20 years, then B would be hit twice. First, as the Legislature intended, his minimum term would be the statutory floor, 20 years. Second, the same enhancements, which were not enough to put his determinate term over 20 years, would then be added on top of the statutory floor. This is not what the Legislature intended.
Authority:
People v. Victor (1991) 227 Cal.App.3d 518, 524-525
People v. Jenkins (1995) 10 Cal.4th 234, 253 [noting that engrafting a term of enhancement onto the life term would lead to a result inconsistent with the statute’s methodology for setting the minimum period of required imprisonment, and nothing in the statute suggests that the Legislature intended that those same enhancements be used again to add an additional term of imprisonment onto the life term]
Fourth Holding:
An appellate court may correct a sentence that is not authorized by law. Accordingly, we will strike the unauthorized enhancements from the defendant’s sentence.
Authority:
In re Ricky H. (1981) 30 Cal.3d 176, 191
In re Sandel (1966) 64 Cal.2d 412, 417-419
People v. Skeirik (1991) 229 Cal.App.3d 444, 468-469
Fifth Holding:
On the amended abstract of judgment form, the court should indicate in section No. 8 that the defendant was sentenced pursuant to both section 667.7 and the Three Strikes law.
[Gary note: The court cited no authority for its directive for the correction of the abstract of judgment. It isn’t entirely clear that the abstract was incorrect, but a fair reading led me to that conclusion. In any event, there is much authority supporting the court’s ability to order correction of abstracts of judgment and minute orders, and I have set out some below.]Authority:
People v. Mitchell (2001) 26 Cal.4th 181, 185
People v. Delgado (2008) 43 Cal.4th 1059, 1070
People v. Leon (2020) 8 Cal.5th 831, 855
In re Black (1967) 66 Cal.2d 881, 890
People v. Zackery (2007) 147 Cal.App.4th 380, 385
People v. Farell (2002) 28 Cal.4th 381, 384, fn. 2