Filed 8/4/26 P. v. Williams CA2/8
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION EIGHT
THE PEOPLE, B340026
Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No. TA144346)
v.
SAFARI WILLIAMS,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County. Tammy Chung Ryu, Judge. Affirmed.
Richard L. Fitzer, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Chief
Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant
Attorney General, Steven D. Matthews and Ryan M. Smith,
Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
_______________________________________
INTRODUCTION
In 2018, defendant Safari Williams pled no contest to
evading the police while driving recklessly, and she admitted a
prior strike allegation and two prior prison term allegations.
The court sentenced Williams to eight years in prison, including
two years for the prior prison term enhancements.
About a year later, Williams was sentenced to nearly
80 years to life in prison in a different case, which included a one-
year term for a prior prison term enhancement. A different
division of this court later struck Williams’s prior prison term
enhancement and reduced her sentence in the other case.
In 2023, the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation (CDCR) notified the trial court in this case that
Williams qualified for resentencing under Penal Code
section 1172.751 because she was serving a sentence that
included prior prison term enhancements. The next year, the
trial court held a hearing under section 1172.75. The court found
that because Williams had served the entirety of her sentence in
this case, and because the Court of Appeal struck the prior prison
term in her other case, Williams was not currently serving a
sentence that included any invalid prior prison term
enhancements. The court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to
recall Williams’s sentence and resentence her under
section 1172.75.
Williams appeals, arguing that the trial court was required
to conduct a full resentencing, including resentencing her in her
second case in which she received a nearly 80-years-to-life
1 All undesignated statutory references are to the Penal
Code.
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sentence, because that sentence was part of her total aggregate
sentence, including the one imposed in this case. We reject this
argument.
Williams acknowledges that she served her entire sentence
in this case by the time the court held a hearing under
section 1172.75. Williams also does not dispute that the prior
prison term enhancement in her other case had already been
stricken by the Court of Appeal before that hearing. Thus, when
the court held a hearing under section 1172.75, Williams was no
longer serving a term for a judgment that included a prior prison
term enhancement. As a result, Williams is not eligible for recall
and resentencing under that statute. We therefore affirm the
court’s order denying resentencing.
BACKGROUND
In 2018, the People charged Williams with felony evading
the police while driving recklessly under Vehicle Code
section 2800.2. The People alleged that Williams committed the
offense for the benefit of a criminal street gang and while she was
on parole. The People further alleged that Williams suffered
several prior strike convictions and served several prior prison
terms.
Later that year, Williams pled no contest to a felony
violation of Vehicle Code section 2800.2, and she admitted one
prior strike allegation and two prior prison term allegations.
The trial court sentenced Williams to a total term of eight years
in prison, consisting of the high term of three years for violating
Vehicle Code section 2800.2, doubled to six years under the
“Three Strikes” law, plus two years for the prior prison term
enhancements.
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In 2019, Williams was sentenced to 76 years to life in
prison in a separate case (People v. Williams (Super. Ct. L.A.
County, 2019, No. TA144051)), which included a one-year term
for a prior prison term enhancement. In 2020, a different
division of this court struck Williams’s one-year prior prison term
enhancement in case No. TA144051. Williams was later
resentenced in case No. TA144051.
In September 2023, CDCR notified the trial court that
Williams qualified for resentencing under section 1172.75
because she was serving a sentence in this case that included a
prior prison term enhancement. The court appointed counsel to
represent Williams.
In May 2024, Williams filed a supplemental brief asking
the trial court to recall her sentences in this case and case
No. TA144051, and to conduct a full resentencing in both cases.
Williams argued that her sentences in both cases had merged
into a single aggregate sentence and that she was entitled to
resentencing of that aggregate sentence.
In June 2024, the trial court held a hearing under
section 1172.75. The court found that Williams had already
served her entire sentence in this case and that the Court of
Appeal had stricken Williams’s only other prior prison term
enhancement, which had been imposed in case No. TA144051.
The court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to resentence
Williams under section 1172.75 because she was no longer
serving any sentence that included a prior prison term
enhancement.
Williams appeals.
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DISCUSSION
Williams argues that the trial court erred when it did not
conduct a full resentencing under section 1172.75, including
resentencing her in case No. TA144051. Williams argues that
even though she finished serving her sentence in this case before
the court held the section 1172.75 hearing, she is still entitled to
resentencing in case No. TA144051 because that sentence
automatically merged with her sentence in this case to create a
single aggregate sentence. The People disagree, arguing that
Williams is not eligible for resentencing under section 1172.75
because she is not “currently serving” a sentence that includes a
prior prison term enhancement, as she has finished serving her
sentence in this case, the only one of her sentences that includes
a prior prison term enhancement. As we explain, the court
correctly found Williams was ineligible for resentencing under
section 1172.75.
Senate Bill No. 483 (2021–2022 Reg. Sess.) went into effect
on January 1, 2022, creating what is now section 1172.75.
(Former § 1171.1, added by Stats. 2021, ch. 728, § 3, renumbered
by Stats. 2022, ch. 58, § 12.) The statute renders legally invalid
any prior prison term enhancement imposed before January 1,
2020, unless the enhancement was imposed for a prior sexually
violent conviction. (§ 1172.75, subd. (a).)
The statute also creates a resentencing procedure for
defendants who are currently serving sentences that include a
prior prison term enhancement. (§ 1172.75, subds. (b)–(d).)
Under section 1172.75, subdivision (b), the CDCR is required to
identify any person in custody “currently serving a term for a
judgment that includes an enhancement described in subdivision
(a)” and to provide to the sentencing court “the name of each
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person, along with the person’s date of birth and relevant case
number or docket number.” (Ibid.) If the trial court “determines
that the current judgment includes [a now invalid prior prison
term] enhancement[,] … the court shall recall the sentence and
resentence the defendant.” (Id., subd. (c).) A defendant who is
eligible for relief under section 1172.75 is entitled to a full
resentencing. (People v. Rhodius (2025) 17 Cal.5th 1050, 1067,
fn. 3.)
Whether Williams is entitled to resentencing under
section 1172.75 after she finished serving the only one of her
multiple sentences that includes a prior prison term
enhancement is a question of statutory interpretation. When
interpreting a statute, “[w]e first ‘ “look to the statute’s words and
give them their usual and ordinary meaning,” ’ as ‘ “[t]he
statute’s plain meaning controls the court’s interpretation unless
its words are ambiguous.” ’ [Citations.] We construe statutory
text in context and ‘ “ ‘harmonize “the various parts of a statutory
enactment … by considering the particular clause or section in
the context of the statutory framework as a whole.” ’ ” ’
[Citations.] If, after this analysis, ‘the statute is ambiguous, we
may consider a variety of extrinsic aids,’ including legislative
history.” (People v. Rhodius, supra, 17 Cal.5th at pp. 1057–1058.)
Section 1172.75 expressly limits resentencing eligibility to
individuals who are currently serving a sentence that includes a
prior prison term enhancement. Subdivision (b) requires the
CDCR to identify individuals who are “currently serving a term
for a judgment” that includes a prior prison term enhancement.
(Id., subd. (b), italics added.) Moreover, subdivision (c) requires
the trial court to determine that “the current judgment includes”
a prior prison term enhancement before it recalls the sentence
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and resentences the defendant. (Id., subd. (c), italics added.)
This language is plain, and Williams does not claim that it is in
any way ambiguous. Nothing in section 1172.75’s language
suggests that individuals who have already finished serving a
sentence that includes a prior prison term enhancement are
entitled to resentencing.
As Williams acknowledges, by the time the court held the
section 1172.75 hearing, she had already completed her sentence
in this case, which included two prior prison term enhancements.
She was, therefore, no longer serving the sentence in this case at
the time of that hearing. Although Williams’s sentence in case
No. TA144051 originally included a prior prison term
enhancement, the Court of Appeal struck that enhancement in
2020, and Williams was later resentenced in that case. Williams,
therefore, was not currently serving a sentence that included a
prior prison term enhancement when the court held the section
1172.75 hearing. Consequently, Williams was not entitled to
resentencing under the plain terms of the statute.
Williams argues that she was entitled to resentencing
because her sentence in this case merged with her sentence in
case No. TA144051 to form a single aggregate sentence. Because
she is still serving her sentence in case No. TA144051, Williams
contends that she remains eligible for resentencing under
section 1172.75.
To support this argument, Williams relies on a series of
cases, most of which address resentencing procedures under
Proposition 47. (See, e.g., People v. Buycks (2018) 5 Cal.5th 857;
People v. Cortez (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 308; People v. Roach (2016)
247 Cal.App.4th 178; People v. Sellner (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th
699; see also People v. Hill (1986) 185 Cal.App.3d 831 [discussing
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scope of a trial court’s discretion to conduct full resentencing
under § 1170, subd. (d)].) None of these cases, however, hold that
when a defendant is sentenced in separate cases, those sentences
necessarily merge into a single, aggregate term, including for
purposes of section 1172.75.
To be sure, Williams is correct that in certain
circumstances, sentences imposed in separate cases do merge to
become a single, aggregate term. For instance, under
section 1170.1, multiple consecutive determinate terms must be
combined to form a single, “aggregate term of imprisonment,”
even if the defendant was convicted “in different proceedings or
courts.” (Id., subd. (a); see also In re Reeves (2005) 35 Cal.4th
765, 772.)
But that is not the case when a defendant is sentenced to
multiple concurrent terms. Under section 669, if a defendant is
sentenced in separate proceedings, and the trial court does not
direct in a specified time period whether those separate terms are
to run consecutively or concurrently, “the term of imprisonment
on the second or subsequent judgment shall run concurrently.”
(Id., subd. (b).) As our Supreme Court explained, “no principle of
California law merges concurrent terms into a single aggregate
term.” (In re Reeves, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 773; see also ibid.
[“The determinate sentencing law … does not support the
People’s argument that all of an inmate’s overlapping terms
necessarily constitute a single, unified term of confinement for
purposes of worktime credit”].)
Here, Williams points to nothing in the record showing that
the trial court in case No. TA144051, or any other court, ordered
her sentence in that case to run consecutively to her sentence in
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this case. It must be presumed, then, that both of those
sentences ran concurrently. (§ 669, subd. (b).)
In short, by the time the court held the section 1172.75
hearing, Williams had finished serving her sentence in this case.
Because the Court of Appeal had already stricken the lone prior
prison term enhancement imposed in case No. TA144051,
Williams was not currently serving any sentence that included a
prior prison term enhancement. The trial court, therefore, did
not err when it found it lacked jurisdiction to resentence Williams
under section 1172.75.
DISPOSITION
The trial court’s order denying resentencing under
section 1172.75 is affirmed.
VIRAMONTES, J.
WE CONCUR:
STRATTON, P. J.
SCHERB, J.
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