Filed 7/16/26 P. v. Mack CA2/2
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION TWO
THE PEOPLE, B342237
Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No.
v. YA015023-01)
TIMOTHY JEROME MACK,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County. Scott T. Millington, Judge. Affirmed in
part, vacated in part, and remanded with directions.
Christina Vanarelli, 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, Idan Ivri and Theresa A. Patterson, Deputy
Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Timothy Jerome Mack (defendant) appeals from the trial
court’s order partially granting his purported resentencing
motion and awarding him one additional day of presentencing
custody credits. Defendant argues that the court erroneously
denied his request for a full resentencing hearing. Because the
court lacked jurisdiction to modify defendant’s long-final
sentence, we vacate that portion of the order and remand for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion, including
issuance of an amended abstract of judgment. In all other
respects, the order is affirmed.
BACKGROUND
In 1994, a jury convicted defendant of two counts of
attempted first-degree murder (Pen. Code, §§ 664, 187,
subd. (a)1); two counts of assault with a firearm upon a peace
officer (§ 245, subd. (d)(1)); and one count of unlawful possession
of a firearm (former § 12021.1). The jury also found that
defendant personally used a firearm (§§ 12022.5, subd. (a),
former 1203.06, subd. (a)(1)) and had three prior convictions.
The trial court sentenced defendant to two consecutive life
terms with the possibility of parole, plus 20 years and eight
months in state prison. Defendant received 625 days of
presentence custody credit, including 417 days of actual custody
credit. On direct appeal, we struck a five-year sentence
enhancement and otherwise affirmed the judgment. (People v.
Mack (1995) 38 Cal.App.4th 1484, 1489.)
On September 19, 2024, defendant filed a “Motion to
Correct Unauthorized Sentence Pursuant to Penal Code Section
1 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code
unless otherwise indicated.
2
1237.1[.]” Defendant asserted that his sentence was
unauthorized because the sentencing court miscalculated his
actual custody credits by one day. Defendant argued that this
error not only entitled him to an additional day of credit, but also
a full resentencing hearing.
On September 24, 2024, the trial court modified
defendant’s sentence to reflect 418 days of actual custody credit
and otherwise denied the motion. Defendant timely appealed.
DISCUSSION
I. The Trial Court Did Not Have Jurisdiction to Modify
Defendant’s Sentence
The parties dispute whether the trial court had jurisdiction
to correct defendant’s custody credits nearly 30 years after his
sentence became final.2
“Under the general common law rule, a trial court is
deprived of jurisdiction to resentence a criminal defendant once
execution of the sentence has commenced. [Citations.]” (People
v. Karaman (1992) 4 Cal.4th 335, 344.) In other words, “[o]nce a
criminal defendant’s conviction and sentence become final, trial
courts lack jurisdiction to revisit that judgment absent a specific,
authorized vehicle for doing so; there is no free-floating
jurisdiction to revisit a final criminal judgment.” (People v.
Esquivias (2024) 103 Cal.App.5th 969, 976 (Esquivias), review
granted Oct. 2, 2024, S286371.)
Defendant’s sentence became final following its
modification upon direct appeal in 1995. (People v. Padilla (2022)
13 Cal.5th 152, 161 [“A case is final when ‘the criminal
proceeding as a whole’ has ended [citation] and ‘the courts can no
2 We assume, as the parties do, that the error in defendant’s
custody credit calculation was judicial rather than clerical.
3
longer provide a remedy to a defendant on direct review’
[citation].”].) Thus, neither we nor the trial court may revisit his
sentence absent a “specific, authorized vehicle” empowering us to
do so. (Esquivias, supra, 103 Cal.App.5th at p. 976, review
granted.)
A valid resentencing motion can create jurisdiction to
revisit a final sentence. (See People v. Hernandez (2024) 103
Cal.App.5th 1111, 1118 (Hernandez) [listing examples of such
“special statutory procedure[s]”].) Here, defendant purported to
file a resentencing motion under section 1237.1. But as the
People note on appeal, that statute does not allow courts to recall
or modify final sentences. Section 1237.1 merely “ ‘vest[s]
jurisdiction in trial courts to correct custody credits . . . . pending
[direct] appeal[.]’ ” (People v. Taft (2026) 119 Cal.App.5th 380,
388.) Defendant’s request, filed 29 years after his direct appeal
was decided, exceeds the bounds of section 1237.1. His invalid
motion did not give the trial court jurisdiction to modify his long-
final sentence.
Defendant does not dispute this conclusion. Instead, he
attempts to invoke the “ ‘unauthorized sentence’ rule,” which
“generally permits . . . defendant[s] to ‘challenge an unauthorized
sentence on appeal even if they failed to object below[.]’ ” (In re
G.C. (2020) 8 Cal.5th 1119, 1129, italics omitted.) But our
Supreme Court has held that “to invoke this rule[,] the court
must have jurisdiction over the judgment.” (Id. at p. 1130.)
Accordingly, we have held that “the unauthorized sentence
doctrine does not itself create jurisdiction for a trial court to rule
on an incarcerated defendant’s motion to correct an alleged illegal
sentence after the conviction is final and after the execution of
4
the sentence has begun.” (People v. King (2022) 77 Cal.App.5th
629, 641–642 (King).)
Defendant urges us to depart from our holding in King and
adopt the contrary view that “[a] trial court that imposes a
sentence unauthorized by law retains jurisdiction (or has
inherent power) to correct the sentence at any time the error
comes to its attention, even if execution of the sentence has
commenced or the judgment imposing the sentence has become
final . . . , provided the error is apparent from the face of the
record.” (People v. Codinha (2023) 92 Cal.App.5th 976, 990.) We
continue to agree with our prior analysis in King, as well as the
subsequent cases that have followed its reasoning. (See, e.g.,
People v. Mohammed (2026) 120 Cal.App.5th 222, 231; People v.
Garcia (2025) 114 Cal.App.5th 139, 146; People v. Singleton
(2025) 113 Cal.App.5th 783, 797; Hernandez, supra, 103
Cal.App.5th at p. 1123; People v. Boyd (2024) 103 Cal.App.5th 56,
67 (Boyd).)
Because the trial court “lacked fundamental jurisdiction” to
modify defendant’s sentence, that portion of “its order was . . .
void, not simply voidable.” (Boyd, supra, 103 Cal.App.5th at
p. 71.) We therefore vacate the order to the extent that it
modifies defendant’s sentence. (Doe v. Regents of University of
California (2022) 80 Cal.App.5th 282, 292 [courts have “inherent
power to vacate void orders”].) Defendant’s arguments regarding
his entitlement to full resentencing are moot.
II. It Is Unclear Whether Defendant is Entitled to
Additional Custody Credit
In the alternative, defendant asks us to construe his appeal
as a writ of habeas corpus, as our colleagues in the Second
Division of the Fourth District did in Boyd. (See Boyd, supra, 103
5
Cal.App.5th at p. 66 [a claim to address an unauthorized
sentence must be raised in a petition for writ of habeas corpus].)
We decline to do so because unlike in Boyd, the parties disagree
as to whether defendant’s custody credit calculation was correct.
The People argue that “the record is not clear that [defendant’s]
custody credit calculation was incorrect[,]” and point out that
“because [defendant] sought relief in a procedurally improper
way, the People had no opportunity to respond to [his] motion to
correct his sentence” prior to this appeal. Indeed, the record
reflects that the trial court decided defendant’s motion just five
days after its submission, giving the People virtually no chance to
obtain and review defendant’s 1994 sentencing record or to
oppose his motion. Our reasoning should not be construed as
requiring trial courts to solicit opposition or hold a hearing before
deciding section 1237.1 motions, which are usually “informal[ly]”
briefed and decided. (§ 1237.1.)
The parties’ dispute regarding defendant’s entitlement to
relief has not been litigated or fully briefed. Because we should
not resolve this dispute on this underdeveloped record, requiring
defendant to petition for a writ of habeas corpus would not be a
futile or needless consumption of judicial resources. As we have
held previously, by “requiring the parties to follow the
appropriate procedures for invoking a court’s jurisdiction to
consider an alleged unlawful sentence, we are not needlessly
exalting form over substance.” (King, supra, 77 Cal.App.5th at p.
641.)
DISPOSITION
The September 24, 2024, order is vacated insofar as it
modified defendant’s custody credits. We remand for further
6
proceedings consistent with this opinion, including issuance of an
amended abstract of judgment.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.
_____________________, J.
GOORVITCH
We concur:
________________________, Acting P. J.
CHAVEZ
________________________, J.
GILBERT*
* Retired Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, Second
Appellate District, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to
article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.
7
