Wilson v. Superior Court

California Court of Appeal Jul 31, 1980 No. Civ. 49944Published

Before: Elkington

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Holding. A trial court has the authority to vacate and correct a sentence that is unauthorized by law, even after the time for appeal has passed, because such an order is void and subject to collateral attack.

Issues

Whether a superior court has jurisdiction to set aside a prior order granting conduct credits that was unauthorized by law.
Whether an unauthorized sentence is void and subject to correction regardless of the expiration of the time for appeal.

Disposition. denied

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“Imposition of “a sentence not authorized by law. . . [is] subject to judicial correction whenever the error [comes] to the attention of the trial court or a reviewing court.””

“In such a case the court lacks “jurisdiction” and the sentence, or at least its unlawful part, is “void.””

“a void order or judgment is subject to collateral attack at any time and in any place by any interested party.”

Opinion

ELKINGTON, J.

Petitioner Sidney Wilson committed a felony prior to July 1, 1977, for which he was arrested and confined in jail while awaiting trial. He was thereafter convicted of the offense and sentenced to prison under California’s now repealed

Indeterminate

Sentence Law. Following the state’s

determinate

sentence law (operative July 1, 1977) and before the high court’s decision in

People

Sage

(1980) 26 Cal.3d 498 [165 Cal.Rptr. 280, 611 P.2d 874], the superior court ordered that Wilson’s prison term be reduced by allowance of Penal Code section 4019’s conduct credits covering the period, prior to July 1, 1977, he had spent in jail awaiting trial and sentence. For reasons as will appear, that order will be termed by us as the “first order.”

[818]

People

Sage, supra,

26 Cal.3d 498, 509, footnote 7, holds that “felons sentenced to prison terms under the Indeterminate Sentence Law after January 1, 1948, were not entitled to [the conduct] credits” of section 4019, for presentence jail time served while that law was in effect.

Following announcement of

People

Sage,

and after the usual time for appeal or review by extraordinary writ of the superior court’s first order had passed, the People moved to set the order aside on the ground that it had, in effect, modified Wilson’s sentence in a manner unauthorized by law. The motion was granted by the “second order” of the superior court.

Wilson has petitioned this court for a writ of mandate seeking nullification of the second order.

Wilson v. Superior Court

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ELKINGTON, J.

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