People v. Bustillos

Filed 6/11/26 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

THE PEOPLE, B337951

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. v. VA154319)

EDWARD BUSTILLOS,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Maria A. Davalos, Judge. Reversed and remanded.

Leonard J. Klaif, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Shezad H. Thakor and Jonathan M. Krauss, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

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In 2020, defendant and appellant Edward Bustillos (Bustillos) pled no contest to one count of felony elder or dependent adult abuse. (Pen. Code, § 368, subd. (b)(1).) 1 Pursuant to a stipulated plea agreement, the trial court sentenced Bustillos to an upper term of four years in prison, suspended the sentence, and placed him on formal probation for five years. A few months later, Bustillos failed to appear in court. The trial court revoked his probation and issued a bench warrant. Nearly three years after that, in April 2024, the trial court recalled the bench warrant. In May 2024, Bustillos admitted that he violated his probation by failing to report and enroll in anger management classes. The trial court rejected his request to reinstate probation and resentenced him to the “agreed-upon” four-year upper term. Bustillos appealed. The imposition of the upper term was valid when it was originally imposed in 2020. At that time, the trial court had broad discretion to impose the low, middle, or upper term based on which “best serve[d] the interests of justice.” (Former § 1170, subd. (b); see also § 368, subd. (b)(1) [prescribing two, three, or four-year prison term for elder or dependent adult abuse].) That changed with the passage of Senate Bill No. 567 (2021–2022 Reg. Sess.) (Senate Bill 567), effective January 1, 2022. Now—and at the time of Bustillos’s 2024 resentencing— when three possible terms of imprisonment may be imposed for a crime, a trial court may only impose the upper term “when there