People v. Torres CA6

Filed 5/14/25 P. v. Torres CA6 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

THE PEOPLE, H051389 (Santa Clara County Plaintiff and Respondent, Super. Ct. No. C1774786)

v.

ADAM MEL TORRES,

Defendant and Appellant.

Adam Mel Torres petitioned for resentencing under Penal Code section 1172.75 because his sentence included enhancements for serving prior felony prison terms— prison priors—that are now invalid.1 The trial court denied the petition because punishment for the prison priors was stricken. Based on our decision in People v. Espino (2024) 104 Cal.App.5th 188, review granted Oct. 23, 2024, S2886987 (Espino), Torres argues that the trial court erred. As the Attorney General has not offered any argument in opposition not already considered and rejected in Espino, we agree and remand with directions to resentence Torres. As the trial court will consider presentence credits in resentencing Torres, we decline to consider how the credits should have been calculated.

1 Subsequent undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

I. BACKGROUND Because the facts underlying Torres’ offenses are not relevant to this appeal, we omit them and only recount the relevant proceedings. (See, e.g., People v. Mendez (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th 347, 351, fn. 2.) In October 2017, the prosecutor filed a complaint in Santa Clara County Superior Court charging Adam Mel Torres with using the personal identifying information of another without authorization in violation of section 530.5, subd. (a). The complaint also alleged that Torres had one prior strike and three prison priors. After entering into a plea agreement, Torres pled no contest to the unauthorized use of personal information charge and admitted the prior strike as well as the prison priors. Pursuant to the agreement, the trial court sentenced Torres consecutively to a sentence he was already serving in another case from San Mateo County, and because the sentence in the San Mateo case was longer, the court treated the sentence for the unauthorized use offense as the subordinate term and imposed one year and four months in prison—one-third of the middle term of two years, doubled for his strike—for that offense. The court also imposed the three prison priors but struck the punishment for them. Finally, the court awarded Torres 485 presentence credits (422 actual and 63 conduct) for the Santa Clara County case and 225 presentence credits (188 actual and 37 conduct) for the San Mateo County case. In June 2022, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) released a list of inmates upon whom prison priors were imposed in cases in Santa Clara County.2 Torres is on the list, and he petitioned for resentencing under section 1172.75. On August 30, 2023, the trial court denied the petition, reasoning that