People v. Hall

California Court of Appeal May 30, 1984 No. Crim. No. 15636Published

Before: Work

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Holding. The court held that a defendant's voluntary waiver of a plea bargain term is not invalidated by the failure of the defendant's underlying strategic motivation, nor does the subsequent modification of a sentence vacate a prior waiver of plea bargain terms.

Issues

Whether a defendant is entitled to specific performance of an original plea bargain after voluntarily waiving its terms to pursue a different sentencing strategy.
Whether a waiver of plea bargain terms becomes void when the resulting sentence is later modified by the court.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“We find his prison sentence fulfills the trial court’s obligation under the plea bargain, and hold the fact Hall’s bargained sentence did not enable him to avoid a parole revocation in a different case is irrelevant”

“Hall knew the possibility of parole revocation existed even with a prison commitment. A plea is invariably made without complete foresight into the possible consequences, and there is no guarantee the accused will make a decision that in hindsight will not reflect an error in judgment.”

“The sentence and the bargain underlying it are separate.”

Opinion

WORK, J. Bradley Earl Hall was sentenced to prison after a judgment convicting him of annoying or molesting children (Pen. Code,1 § 647a). He [653]appeals, claiming he has been denied the benefits of a bargained plea he had proposed under which he voluntarily rejected an earlier agreement for local time in exchange for a prison term. We find his prison sentence fulfills the trial court’s obligation under the plea bargain, and hold the fact Hall’s bargained sentence did not enable him to avoid a parole revocation in a different case is irrelevant where his plea bargain was not contingent on the success of his efforts to avoid revocation in those unrelated proceedings.

Hall committed his present crime while on parole from the California Youth Authority (CYA) for a similar offense. Here, Hall pleaded guilty and admitted his prior conviction in exchange for a promise the court would sentence him to local time to run concurrently with any time served should his CYA parole be revoked, unle: ' he was found to be a mentally disordered sex offender (MDSO). Hall was found to be an MDSO and was committed to Patton State Hospital for three years, while criminal proceedings were suspended.

Hall was returned to court when he failed to benefit from treatment, and criminal proceedings were resumed. Before sentencing, Hall asked permission to, and waived, his bargain in order to be sentenced to prison with credit for time served, believing having a prison sentence imposed would enhance his chances of not having his CYA parole revoked.2 He erroneously believed he had sufficient custodial credits to offset any actual prison confinement on the present charge. The court accepted the waiver and committed Hall to prison for the aggravated term of three years with credit for time served. Mistakenly believing the remaining time on the prison commitment was only five days, the court ordered Hall to remain in local custody to serve the balance of his term.

Within one hundred and twenty days, the court recalled Hall’s sentence (under § 1170, subd. (d)) because the actual time remaining on his three-year sentence far exceeded five days and would require Hall to be imprisoned.3 At resentencing Hall tried to rescind his waiver of the terms of the original plea bargain because, in spite of his efforts, his parole was going to be revoked. The request was denied; however, Hall was given an opportunity to withdraw his plea in light of the circumstances. He declined to do so, insisting the original bargain be restored. Hall was resentenced to the midterm of two years and, since no time now remained on the prison com

People v. Hall

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