People v. Griffin
People v. Griffin
Opinion of the Court
Opinion
When a defendant is convicted of a felony, an additional sentence is authorized if it is further proven that the defendant was on bail for another felony at the time of the crime. Under Penal Code
Defendant Richard Griffin was admitted to bail on primary offenses alleged in Arizona. While on that bail he committed secondary offenses in California. After his California conviction, the court determined that he was subject to a 12022.1 enhancement. He argues that this determination was erroneous because 12022.1 only applies when the primary offense is committed in California. That argument fails. We conclude that the enhancement applies regardless of where the primary offense is committed. The trial court,
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Defendant was charged with three felonies and one misdemeanor. The information also alleged, pursuant to section 12022.1, subdivision (c), that he committed the California offenses while out of custody on bail for Arizona felony charges. Defendant demurred to the 12022.1 allegation, arguing that the enhancement did not apply when the primary offenses were not committed in California.
The court overruled the demurrer and defendant pleaded guilty to the substantive charges. At a bench trial on the 12022.1 allegation, defendant stipulated that he was on an Arizona bail when arrested for the California crimes. Accordingly, the court found the enhancement true. At the time of sentencing, defendant had already been given a term of five years and six months in Arizona. Here, the court sentenced defendant to five years and eight months, including a consecutive two-year term for the 12022.1 enhancement. The California sentence was ordered to run concurrently with the Arizona imprisonment.
DISCUSSION
Section 12022.1 provides, in relevant part, that: “(a) . . . : [f] (1) ‘Primary offense’ means a felony offense for which a person has been released from custody on bail or on his or her own recognizance prior to the judgment becoming final, including the disposition of any appeal, or for which release on bail on his or her own recognizance has been revoked. ...[][] (2) ‘Secondary offense’ means a felony offense alleged to have been committed while the person is released from custody for a primary offense. p]Q (b) Any person arrested for a secondary offense which was alleged to have been committed while that person was released from custody on a primary offense shall be subject to a penalty enhancement of an additional two years in state prison which shall be served consecutive to any other term imposed by the
Defendant argues that felonies committed outside California cannot be considered “primary offenses” because the Legislature failed to expressly refer to those offenses in section 12022.1. However, nothing in the language of the statute limits the section as defendant urges. By failing to exclude any felonies from the definition of a primary offense, all felonies no matter where committed “are obviously included within the general provision[].” (People v. Biggs (1937) 9 Cal.2d 508, 510 [71 P.2d 214]; see People v. Pensinger (1991) 52 Cal.3d 1210, 1260 [278 Cal.Rptr. 640, 805 P.2d 899] (Pensinger).) The Legislature could have drafted the statute as defendant urges but it did not do so.
Defendant relies upon the language used in analogous enhancement and recidivist statutes that expressly refer to the use of prior felony convictions from other jurisdictions. (See, e.g., §§ 667, subds. (a), (d)(2), 667.5, subd. (f), 1170.12, subd. (b)(2), 1203, subd. (e)(4); Health & Saf. Code, § 11370, subd. (c).) He urges that because the Legislature did not employ such language in section 12022.1, it clearly did not intend to include foreign felonies as a basis for the enhancement. However, the language used in the statutes cited by defendant is not language of inclusion but rather expresses a legislative limitation or restriction on the use of out-of-state convictions. (See generally People v. Lang (1989) 49 Cal.3d 991, 1038-1039 [264 Cal.Rptr. 386, 782 P.2d 627], and the cases cited therein.) “In the absence of limitation, a reference to ‘prior felony convictions’ is deemed to include any prior conviction which was a felony under the laws of the convicting jurisdiction. [Citations.]” (Ibid.., italics added.)
In People v. Walker (2002) 29 Cal.4th 577 [128 Cal.Rptr.2d 75, 59 P.3d 150] (Walker), the Supreme Court held that section 12022.1 applied even where the only secondary offense the defendant committed while released on bail was a failure to appear as required by a bail condition on the primary offense in violation of section 1320.5. While the particular question is distinguishable from that presented here, the Supreme Court’s approach in interpreting section 12022.1 is instructive.
As in Walker, the language of section 12022.1 sets out no exception that would prevent its application here. In reviewing the legislative history Justice Baxter observed that the Legislature apparently considered defendants convicted of both primary and secondary felonies “as particularly deserving of increased punishment for their on-bail recidivism.” ('Walker, supra, 29 Cal.4th at p. 584.) Certainly there is nothing in the legislative history to indicate that the Legislature considered that those on bail for foreign felonies who come into California and commit secondary felonies here are any less deserving of increased punishment than felons who confine their felonious conduct to their own state. As in Walker, the statutory interpretation we adopt here “leads to the rational result that the more culpable offenders receive the greater punishment.” (Ibid.)
There is no procedural bar to applying the sentence enhancement when the primary offense occurs outside California. The statute allows a prosecutor to plead the enhancement in the information or indictment for the secondary offense committed in California. (§ 12022.1, subd. (c).) When, as here, the sentence enhancement is pleaded and proved in the secondary offense, “the secondary-offense court, and only that court, has the authority to either strike the enhancement under section 1385, or to impose the enhancement as part of the defendant’s sentence.” (People v. Meloney (2003) 30 Cal.4th 1145, 1162-1163 [135 Cal.Rptr.2d 602, 70 P.3d 1023].) If the primary offense court has not yet acted, the secondary offense court may stay
We reject defendant’s related argument that the 12022.1 enhancement violates due process because it does not provide a mechanism for determining whether a foreign charge is a felony for purposes of imposing the enhancement. “This claim ignores the many situations in which state courts are required to interpret and give full faith and credit to foreign judgments. Our federal system of comity, and the law of conflict of laws, rests on the sound assumption that the courts of one state are able to interpret and apply the law of sister jurisdictions.” (Pensinger, supra, 52 Cal.3d at p. 1261.) In any event, defendant does not claim that the Arizona offenses were not felonies in Arizona or that they would not constitute felony offenses had they been committed in California. We likewise reject his argument that out-of-state defendants are denied due process because they are not likely to receive notice at the time of their release on bail that they are subject to additional punishment if they commit new felonies in California. Section 12022.1 informs accused felons released on bail of the possible consequences of committing felonies in California while on bail.
Defendant contends that as a matter of public policy an accused felon who is released in another state and comes into California and commits a new felony should be exempt from the 12022.1 enhancement. He argues that “California has little interest in punishing a person for ‘breach[ing] ... the terms of his special custodial status’ . . . where that status was created in another state, and no interest in punishing a person, even in part, for an offense committed in another state which would not be a felony or even an offense in California.” We disagree.
The 12022.1 enhancement applies and the sentence imposed in California should have run consecutively to the Arizona term. (§ 12022.1, subd. (e).) The court’s imposition of a concurrent sentence was illegal. The parties agree, and we concur, that under the circumstances, the judgment must be reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. (People v. Baries (1989) 209 Cal.App.3d 313, 316, 319 [256 Cal.Rptr. 920].) Because an express condition of defendant’s plea cannot be honored, he may move to withdraw his plea. (Ibid.)
DISPOSITION
The judgment is reversed and the matter is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
McGuiness, R J., concurred.
All further unspecified statutory references are to the Penal Code.
The statute takes into account a number of variables that may be presented by specific factual scenarios that differ from that involved here. (See § 12022.1, subds. (d), (f), (g).)
We are aware that Walker was decided by a vote of four to three. However, this case involves completely different substantive offenses, unrelated to defendant’s status as a felon on bail. Defendant’s underlying crimes share no common elements with the 12022.1 enhancement. Thus, the particular issue that engaged the dissenters in Walker is not in play. Nothing in the dissent’s analysis in Walker is at odds with the conclusion we reach here.
Because the judgment is reversed, we need not consider the additional points raised in defendant’s supplemental opening brief.
Concurring Opinion
I concur in the result reached in the majority opinion, but consider the issue presented to be more difficult. And, in my view, the difficulty highlights the need for legislative clarification.
The majority opinion correctly points out that “the language used in [these] statutes ... is not the language of inclusion but rather expresses a legislative limitation or restriction on the use of out-of-state convictions,” and that in the absence of any such limitation a reference to prior felony convictions has been held to include a prior conviction that is a felony under the laws of the convicting jurisdiction. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1116; see also People v. Lang (1989) 49 Cal.3d 991, 1038-1039 [264 Cal.Rptr. 386, 782 P.2d 627].) This reasoning logically supports the conclusion that the unqualified reference in section 12022.1, subdivision (a)(1) to “a felony offense for which a person has been released from custody on bail” includes a felony for which the defendant was on bail in another jurisdiction. Nonetheless, the atypical absence of explicit language to the effect that the provision applies to persons on bail in foreign proceedings raises the question of whether in enacting section 12022.1 the Legislature was considering out-of-state bail. If the offense for which a defendant was on bail in another jurisdiction did not constitute a felony in California, is it so clear that section 12022.1 could be used to enhance the defendant’s sentence? Subdivisions (c) and (d) of section 12022.1 both contain the suggestion that the statute was not enacted with
Despite these indications of a more restrictive legislative intent, the contrary indications to which the majority opinion refers are in my judgment more persuasive. The statute does make unqualified reference to “a felony offense.” There is no suggestion in the legislative history that the Legislature intended to treat offenders on bail in other states less sternly than those committing new offenses while on bail in California. No plausible reason has been suggested why the Legislature might wish to draw such a distinction. Thus, it seems much more likely that the Legislature simply overlooked potential qualifications in the application of the statute to persons on bail for primary out-of-state offenses than that the Legislature did not intend section 12022.1 to apply to such persons at all. Moreover, the more expansive interpretation of the statute is consistent with the public policy evidenced by the very enhancement provisions cited above of applying such provisions to offenses occurring in other jurisdictions. Indeed, section 668 expresses this policy broadly, and without limitation, with respect to “all statutes that provide for an enhancement or a term of imprisonment based on a prior conviction or a prior prison term.”
A petition for a rehearing was denied May 18, 2005, and appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied August 10, 2005. Werdegar, J., did not participate therein.
Unless otherwise indicated, all statutory references are to the Penal Code.
Section 668 reads: “Every person who has been convicted in any other state, government, country, or jurisdiction of an offense for which, if committed within this state, that person could have been punished under the laws of this state by imprisonment in the state prison, is punishable for any subsequent crime committed within this state in the manner prescribed by law and to the same extent as if that prior conviction had taken place in a court of this state. The application of this section includes, but is not limited to, all statutes that provide for an enhancement or a term of imprisonment based on a prior conviction or a prior prison term.”
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.