P. v. Barker
Defendant was sentenced to prison for eight years. Concurrent jail terms were imposed for the misdemeanors. Defendant was awarded 187 days’ custody credit and 37 days’ conduct credit.
On appeal, defendant contends (1) his request to discharge his retained counsel was erroneously denied, (2) his felony grand theft conviction must be reduced to misdemeanor petty theft, and (3) principles of equal protection entitle him to additional conduct credit. Although defendant has forfeited any claim of error with respect to the trial court’s ruling on reconsideration denying his request to discharge retained counsel, we conclude there was no error. The trial court acted within its discretion to deny defendant’s untimely request. We agree with defendant that his felony grand theft conviction must be reduced to a misdemeanor petty theft because the threshold amount for grand theft had been increased to $950 and this increased amount applied to cases not yet final on appeal. As to defendant’s conduct credits, we reject defendant’s argument based on an opinion issued by the California Supreme Court. We also note the trial court made a mistake by applying the three strikes law’s limitation on postcommitment credits to defendant’s presentence conduct credits. As a result, we modify the judgment to reduce the felony grand theft conviction to a misdemeanor petty theft and dismiss the enhancement for committing a felony while released from custody. We remand the matter to the trial court to resentence defendant based on his conviction of three misdemeanors and recalculate his presentence conduct credits.
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