In Re Ring

PETERS, J.

This petition presents the same problem involved in our recent decisions in

In re Estrada,

63 Cal.2d 740 [48 Cal.Rptr. 172, 408 P.2d 948], and in

In re Daup,

63 Cal.2d 754 [48 Cal.Rptr. 181, 408 P.2d 957], It was held in those eases that limited retroactive effect should be given to the 1963 amendments to the Penal Code mitigating the punishment for escapes committed without force or violence.

As in the case of

In re Corcoran (ante,

p. 447 [50 Cal.Rptr. 529, 413 P.2d 129]), this day decided, the Attorney General concedes that the amendments in question are applicable to the facts of this case. Those facts are that petitioner on April 9, 1959, was sentenced for the term prescribed by law, after his conviction for robbery, found to be of the second degree. In April of 1961, without force or violence, he escaped from the Murietta Conservation Camp where he had been confined. He was apprehended in Wisconsin and brought back to this state. Here, in the Superior Court of Monterey County, he pleaded guilty to a charge of escape in violation of Penal Code section 4531, and on February 10, 1964, was sentenced to imprisonment for the term prescribed by law, such term to run consecutively with any prior uncompleted sentence. The judge made the sentences consecutive with some reluctance, stating to petitioner at the time of sentence: “The crime for which you stand convicted, to-wit, escape from California prison, in violation of Section 4531, the Court hereby sentences you to the California Correctional Facility, Training Facility, Soledad, California, to serve your sentence, and in as much as it is mandatory and the Court regrets it, but your sentence will run consecutively to any and all terms that you may now be serving down there and will add one year to your sentence. I would like the new section to apply, but I am just afraid it doesn’t. ’

1

As pointed out in

In re Corcoran, supra (ante,

p. 447), in September of 1963, after the escape but before the judgment

[452]