P. v. Murtland

















Filed 1/24/13 P. v. Murtland CA4/3

















NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS



California
Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or
relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except
as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This
opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for
purposes of rule 8.1115.







IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA



FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT



DIVISION THREE




>

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JOHN BARTON MURTLAND, Defendant and Appellant.

G047247 (Super. Ct. No. 30-2011-00523248) O P I N I O N

Appeal
from a judgment of the Superior Court of href="http://www.adrservices.org/neutrals/frederick-mandabach.php">Orange
County, Carl Biggs, Judge.
Affirmed.

Frank
Ospino, Public Defender, Jean Wilkinson, Chief Deputy Public Defender, Mark
Brown, Assistant Public Defender, and Miles David Jessup, Deputy Public
Defender, for Defendant and Appellant.

Tony
Rackauckas, District Attorney, and Brian F. Fitzpatrick, Deputy District
Attorney, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

On
October
7, 2011, appellant pleaded
guilty to and was sentenced for a commercial burglary he had committed about
three weeks earlier, on September 18. In
between, on October 1, a statutory amendment that allows inmates to accrue
presentence conduct credits at an enhanced rate became effective. Appellant contends he is entitled to receive
conduct credits at that enhanced rate for the seven days he was in custody
between the time the amendment became effective and the time he was
sentenced. Following this court’s
opinion in People v. Rajanayagam
(2012) 211 Cal.App.4th 42 (Rajanayagam),
we reject that contention and affirm the trial court’s decision to award
appellant conduct credits at the preamendment rate.

DISCUSSION

Penal Code section 4019
allows inmates to receive conduct credit (for work and good behavior) while
they are in custody prior to sentencing.href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="">[1] Historically, the statute entitled defendants
to “one-for-two conduct credits, which is two days for every four days of
actual time served in presentence custody.
[Citation.]” (>Rajanayagam, supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at
p. 48.) But in light of the state’s
budget crisis, the Legislature began rethinking that formula in 2010. (Ibid.) As part of the Criminal Justice Realignment
Act of 2011 (Realignment Act), the Legislature amended section 4019 to allow
defendants to earn presentence conduct credit at the rate of one-for-one. (>Id. at p. 49; §
4019, subd. (f) [“It is the intent of the Legislature that if all days are
earned under this section, a term of four days will be deemed to have been
served for every two days spent in actual custody.”].)

However, that amendment
did not take effect until October 1, 2011. (>Rajanayagam, supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at
pp. 49-50.) And, the Legislature made it
clear that it did not intend the amendment to be applied retroactively. Subdivision (h) of section 4019 expressly
states that the credit rate increase provided for in the Realignment Act “name="[FN2]IAED61C01E87511E09622BF5C2D7637E9">shall apply >prospectively and shall apply to
prisoners who are confined to a county jail . . . for a crime committed on or
after October 1, 2011. Any days earned by a prisoner prior to October 1, 2011, shall be calculated at the rate required by the
prior law.” (§ 4019, subd. (h), italics added.)

Utilizing the preamendment rate, the trial
court in this case awarded appellant 10 days of presentence conduct credit,
based on 20 days of actual custody, for a total of 30 days credit. Appellant admits the preamendment rate
applies for the time he spent in custody
from the date of his offense on September 18 until September 30, 2011. However, he
contends, both as a matter of statutory construction and equal protection, he
should be given the enhanced credit rate for the seven days he was in custody
from October 1 to October 7, the day he was sentenced.

That
would result in appellant receiving an additional two days of presentence
conduct credit, but as this court explained in Rajanayagam, the standard principles of statutory construction do
not support that result. The second
sentence of section 4019, subdivision (h) does imply that conduct credits should
be awarded at the enhanced rate for time spent in custody after October 1, 2011. But that
would render the provision’s first sentence regarding prospective application
meaningless, which would contravene the well-established tenet that statutes
should be construed in a manner so as to give meaning to all of their provisions. (>Rajanayagam, supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at
p. 51.)

Appellant’s
proposed construction would also undermine the Legislature’s intent, as
reflected in the first sentence, that the enhanced credit rate shall apply only
to those defendants who committed their crimes on or after October 1, 2011. “To imply the enhanced
conduct credit provision applies to defendants who committed their crimes
before [that] date but served time in local custody after [that] date reads too
much into the statute and ignores the Legislature’s clear intent in subdivision
(h)’s first sentence.” (Rajanayagam,
supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at p. 52, fn. omitted.)


Appellant
points out that, in deciding a 2010 amendment to section 4019 should be applied
prospectively only, our Supreme Court in People
v. Brown (2012) 54 Cal.4th 314 (Brown)
surmised that to apply the amendment in that fashion would result in defendants
whose custody overlapped the statute’s operative date earning conduct credit at
two different rates. (>Id. at p. 322.) Viewed in isolation, that statement does, by
extension, support appellant’s argument in this case. But appellant admits the statement was not
necessary to any of the issues presented in Brown. It was dicta and is not binding for purposes
of this case. (People v. Nguyen (2000) 22 Cal.4th 872, 879.)

Moreover,
whereas “in Brown the Legislature did
not expressly declare whether the . . . 2010 amendment was to apply
retroactively or prospectively . . . [h]ere, the Legislature did expressly
state the current version of section 4019 is to apply prospectively only to
defendants who commit their offenses on or after October 1, 2011.” (>Rajanayagam, supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at
p. 52, fn. 4.) Consistent with that
expression, we interpret section 4019 and the enhanced credit provisions
contained therein as applying only to such defendants. Give that appellant committed his crime
before October 1, 2011, he
does not come within the scope of those provisions. (Id.
at p. 52; accord, People v. Ellis
(2012) 207 Cal.App.4th 1546, 1549-1551.)


In appellant’s opinion,
that creates an equal protection problem because there can be no justification
for awarding defendants conduct credits at different rates based on the date
they committed their crimes. Again, >Rajanayagam is dispositive of
appellant’s claim. In that case, we
acknowledged “the current version of section 4019 creates a classification that
affects two similarly situated groups in an unequal manner. [Citation.]”
(Rajanayagam, supra, 211
Cal.App.4th at p. 54.) Nevertheless,
recognizing that one of the primary purposes of the Realignment Act was to
reduce prison spending, we found the statute was rationally related to that
objective.

Specifically,
we held, “[I]n
choosing October 1, 2011, as the effective date of
[the credit rate increase], the Legislature took a measured approach and
balanced the goal of cost savings against public
safety. The effective date was a
legislative determination that its stated goal of reducing corrections costs
was best served by granting enhanced conduct credits to those defendants who
committed their offenses on or after October 1,
2011. To be sure, awarding enhanced conduct credits
to everyone in local confinement would have certainly resulted in greater cost
savings than awarding enhanced conduct credits to only those defendants who
commit an offense on or after name="citeas((Cite_as:_211_Cal.App.4th_42,_*56">the amendment’s effective
date. But that is not the approach the
Legislature chose in balancing public safety against cost savings. [Citation.]
Under the very deferential rational relationship test, we will not
second-guess the Legislature and conclude its stated purpose is better served
by increasing the group of defendants who are entitled to enhanced conduct
credits when the Legislature has determined the fiscal crisis is best
ameliorated by awarding enhanced conduct credit to only those defendants who
committed their offenses on or after October 1, 2011.” (>Rajanayagam, supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at
pp. 55-56.)

Instead, >Rajanayagam determined the Legislature’s
decision to apply section 4019 prospectively to defendants who were confined
for crimes committed on or after October 1, 2011 was fully consistent with the constitutional
guarantee of equal protection. (>Rajanayagam, supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at
pp. 53-56.) Every other published
decision that has considered the issue has concluded similarly. (People
v. Verba (2012) 210 Cal.App.4th 991, 994-997; People v. Kennedy (2012) 209 Cal.App.4th 385, 397-400; >People v. Ellis, supra, 207 Cal.App.4th
at pp. 1551-1553.) For the reasons
explained in those decisions, and consistent with our holding in >Rajanayagam, we reject appellant’s equal
protection argument and uphold the trial court’s decision to award him conduct
credit at the rate of one day for every two days he spent in actual
custody. There is no basis for
disturbing the trial court’s decision in that regard.



DISPOSTION

The judgment is
affirmed.











BEDSWORTH,
ACTING P. J.





WE CONCUR:









IKOLA, J.









THOMPSON, J.