People v. Williams

Opinion

GILBERT, J. Defendant Debra Ann Williams appeals an order revoking her probation and sentencing her to a state prison term. We affirm and hold the trial court possessed jurisdiction to revoke Williams’s probation despite her additional status as a parolee.

[1316]Facts

The Santa Barbara County prosecutor charged Williams with eight counts of residential burglary. (Pen. Code,1 § 459.) On March 6, 1987, Williams pleaded nolo contendere to three counts of residential burglary and acknowledged she could receive a maximum sentence of eight years and eight months’ imprisonment. The sentencing judge suspended imposition of sentence and placed Williams on probation for five years with one year’s imprisonment in county jail. (Williams received credit for five hundred and one days served in county jail and in a state mental hospital under an incompetency commitment pursuant to section 1368.) One condition of probation required Williams not to move her residence without the permission of her probation officer.

At the time of this sentencing, Riverside County had filed burglary charges against Williams. Neither Williams nor the prosecutor nor the probation officer brought this to the court’s attention. Following sentencing in Santa Barbara Superior Court, Riverside County tried and convicted Williams of burglary. Williams received a state prison term and subsequently was paroled on January 9, 1989.

Approximately six months after being paroled, Williams moved from Los Angeles to Riverside without the permission of her parole officer or her Santa Barbara County probation officer. In a probation revocation hearing, Williams admitted moving to Riverside without permission because her father became ill there.2 The trial judge then revoked Williams’s probation and sentenced her to a four-year midterm, to be served concurrently on each of the three counts. Williams also received credit for 588 days served. This appeal followed.

Discussion

Williams contends the trial court lacked jurisdiction to revoke her probation because she claims a defendant cannot be on probation and parole at the same time. She argues probation and parole are mutually exclusive since no rehabilitative purpose is served by placing a parolee on probation. (People v. Cramer (1983) 149 Cal.App.3d 1135, 1138 [197 Cal.Rptr. 301].) She also claims the Department of Corrections has exclusive custody of parolees and therefore reasons that the order revoking her probation is void. We disagree.