Filed 4/13/22

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

RONALD REYES CANEDOS,

Defendant and Appellant.

 B308433

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No. MA066185)

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of 

Los Angeles County, Shannon Knight, Judge. Reversed and 

remanded with directions.

Randall Conner, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. 

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief 

Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant 

Attorney General, Noah P. Hill and Steven E. Mercer, Deputy 

Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

____________________________
2

In 2020, the Legislature enacted Assembly Bill No. 1950 

(Stats. 2020, ch. 328) (Assembly Bill No. 1950), which reduced 

the maximum duration of probation in most felony cases to 

two years, and in misdemeanor cases to one year. Under 

principles first established in In re Estrada (1965) 63 Cal.2d 740 

(Estrada), courts have held unanimously that the law applies 

retroactively to the benefit of defendants serving probation terms 

in excess of the maximum under the new law. (People v. Quinn

(2021) 59 Cal.App.5th 874, 879−884 (Quinn); People v. Sims

(2021) 59 Cal.App.5th 943, 955−964 (Sims); People v. Lord (2021) 

64 Cal.App.5th 241, 244−246 (Lord); People v. Stewart (2021) 

62 Cal.App.5th 1065, 1070−1074 (Stewart), review granted 

June 30, 2021, S268787.)

This case requires us to determine how far the retroactive 

application of Assembly Bill No. 1950 extends. Defendant and 

appellant Ronald Reyes Canedos, unlike the defendants in the 

cases cited above, had violated the terms of his probation before 

Assembly Bill No. 1950 became effective on January 1, 2021. 

Canedos contends that the statute nevertheless applies 

retroactively to him. He argues that because he violated 

probation more than two years after the court imposed probation, 

we must reverse the sentence of 32 months in prison that the 

trial court imposed following the violation.

We agree, as we see no principled basis for denying 

retroactive relief to defendants in Canedos’s position. Although 

Canedos had violated the terms of his probation before Assembly 

Bill No. 1950 became effective, neither the trial court’s finding of 

a violation nor his original conviction was yet final for purposes 

of retroactivity under Estrada. (See People v. Esquivel (2021) 

11 Cal.5th 671, 678 (Esquivel); see also People v. McKenzie (2020) 
3

9 Cal.5th 40, 47–48.) Unless the Legislature specifies 

otherwise, it is a matter of “presumed legislative intent” that 

an ameliorative criminal statute applies retroactively to all 

defendants whose convictions were not yet final when the

law became effective. (Esquivel, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 680.) 

We see no indication in the text or legislative history of Assembly 

Bill No. 1950 that the Legislature meant to limit its retroactive 

application. Under the new law, Canedos’s probation expired 

in 2018, more than a year before he committed the violation. 

Thus, the court no longer had the authority to revoke Canedos’s 

probation and sentence him to prison. (See People v. Butler

(2022) 75 Cal.App.5th 216, 220–221 (Butler), petn. for review 

pending, petn. filed Mar. 25, 2022, S273773.)

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL SUMMARY

On January 12, 2016, Canedos pleaded guilty to two 

counts of possession of a firearm by a felon (Pen. Code,1 § 29800, 

subd. (a)(1)), one count of possession of body armor by a violent

felon (§ 31360, subd. (a)), and one count of possession of

ammunition by a felon (§ 30305, subd. (a)(1)). The trial court 

sentenced him to four years in prison and suspended execution 

of the sentence pending the completion of four years of probation.

More than three years later, on December 17, 2019, 

Canedos became involved in an argument with his wife, O.S. 

According to statements from family members, Canedos pulled 

a knife on O.S., moved it back and forth in front of her face, 

and threatened to kill O.S. and her mother. Three days later, 

on December 20, Canedos pleaded not guilty to several charges

related to the incident, including assault with a deadly weapon 

1 Subsequent statutory references are to the Penal Code.
4

(§ 245, subd. (a)(1)), and the trial court summarily revoked his 

probation.

At a trial on the new charges, a jury convicted Canedos 

in September 2020 of assault with a deadly weapon, and the 

court found him in violation of his probation term requiring 

him to obey all laws. The court imposed an aggregate sentence 

of 6 years 8 months in prison. The sentence consisted of the 

upper term of four years for assault with a deadly weapon, plus 

consecutive terms of eight months—one third the middle term—

for each of the four 2016 counts. In a prior opinion, we affirmed 

the conviction of assault with a deadly weapon. (See People v. 

Canedos (Oct. 21, 2021, B307948) [nonpub. opn.].)

DISCUSSION

A. Retroactivity of Assembly Bill No. 1950

In September 2020, the Legislature enacted Assembly Bill 

No. 1950, which reduced the maximum duration of probation 

in cases in which the court suspends the execution of a sentence 

pending the successful completion of probation. Previously, 

section 1203.1, subdivision (a) allowed courts to impose up to 

five years of probation in cases where the suspended sentence 

was five years or less. Under the new law, which became 

effective January 1, 2021, the maximum period of probation 

is two years. 

“Generally, a statute applies prospectively unless otherwise 

stated in the language of the statute, or when retroactive 

application is clearly indicated by legislative intent.” (People v. 

Winn (2020) 44 Cal.App.5th 859, 872.) Beginning with its 

opinion in Estrada, however, our Supreme Court has recognized 

an exception to this rule in ameliorative criminal statutes. The
5

court explained that “[w]hen the Legislature amends a statute 

so as to lessen the punishment it has obviously expressly 

determined that its former penalty was too severe and that a 

lighter punishment is proper as punishment for the commission 

of the prohibited act. It is an inevitable inference that the 

Legislature must have intended that the new statute imposing 

the new lighter penalty now deemed to be sufficient should 

apply to every case to which it constitutionally could apply. The 

amendatory act imposing the lighter punishment can be applied 

constitutionally to acts committed before its passage provided 

the judgment convicting the defendant of the act is not final. 

This intent seems obvious, because to hold otherwise would be 

to conclude that the Legislature was motivated by a desire for 

vengeance, a conclusion not permitted in view of modern theories 

of penology.” (Estrada, supra, 63 Cal.2d at p. 745.)

In People v. Francis (1969) 71 Cal.2d 66, the court held that

this presumption of retroactivity applies where a new law merely 

allows for a possibility of reduced punishment by giving the 

trial court discretion to impose a lesser sentence. (Id. at p. 76.) 

In subsequent years, the court has reaffirmed this doctrine 

numerous times and applied it to a wide range of ameliorative 

criminal laws. (See Esquivel, supra, 11 Cal.5th at pp. 675–676

[listing cases].)

In People v. Burton (2020) 58 Cal.App.5th Supp. 1 (Burton),

the court applied this doctrine to Assembly Bill No. 1950 

and held that the law applies retroactively because it is an 

ameliorative statute that reduces a criminal defendant’s potential 

punishment. Although “ ‘[p]robation is neither “punishment”

[citation] nor a criminal “judgment” [citation]’ ” (Burton, supra,

58 Cal.App.5th Supp. at p. 16), the court recognized that 
6

probation is a restriction on liberty and increases the likelihood 

that the probationer will be found in violation of probation 

and incarcerated. In addition, the court recognized that the 

Legislature, in enacting Assembly Bill No. 1950, intended to 

prevent probationers from further involvement in the criminal 

justice system because of probation violations that do not involve 

new criminal conduct. (Burton, supra, 58 Cal.App.5th Supp. at 

p. 15.) With no evidence of legislative intent to the contrary, the 

court concluded that the ameliorative changes of Assembly Bill 

No. 1950 should “ ‘extend as broadly as possible’ ” (Burton, supra, 

at p. 16, quoting People v. Conley (2016) 63 Cal.4th 646, 657

(Conley)), including to defendants already on probation. Several 

subsequent cases that have considered the issue reached the

same conclusion (see, e.g., Quinn, supra, 59 Cal.App.5th at 

pp. 879−884; Sims, supra, 59 Cal.App.5th at pp. 955−964; 

Lord, supra, 64 Cal.App.5th at pp. 244−246; Stewart, supra,

62 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1070−1074, review granted), and we see 

no reason to disagree.

B. Retroactive Application to Defendants with 

Existing Violations

The Attorney General does not take issue with the analysis 

above, but contends that Assembly Bill No. 1950 does not apply

retroactively to Canedos because the court had already found 

that he violated probation before the law became effective. 

This was not the situation in the cases cited above, where the 

defendant challenged the probation order as part of a direct 

appeal of a conviction. (See Quinn, supra, 59 Cal.App.5th at 

p. 878; Stewart, supra, 62 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1069–1070, review 

granted; Sims, supra, 59 Cal.App.5th at pp. 946–947; Lord, 

supra, 64 Cal.App.5th at p. 243.) In two recent cases, People v. 
7

Faial (2022) 75 Cal.App.5th 738 (Faial) and Kuhnel v. Superior 

Court (2022) 75 Cal.App.5th 726 (Kuhnel), the First District, 

Division Three agreed with the Attorney General and held that

Assembly Bill No. 1950 applies retroactively only to “defendants 

whose probation has not been revoked and terminated” (Faial, 

supra, 75 Cal.App.5th at p. 746).

We disagree. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in 

Esquivel compels the conclusion that, although the trial court 

terminated Canedos’s probation, that decision was not yet final 

for purposes of Estrada retroactivity. Esquivel was similarly 

situated to Canedos: He was sentenced to five years in prison, 

with the sentence suspended pending the completion of 

probation. (Esquivel, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 673.) He did not 

initially challenge the sentence, but filed an appeal after the 

court three years later found him in violation of the terms of his 

probation and ordered the suspended sentence into effect. (Ibid.) 

In the interim, the Legislature had enacted a statute restricting 

the applicability of certain sentence enhancements that 

constituted two years of Esquivel’s sentence. The court held that

the law applied retroactively to Esquivel. (Id. at p. 678.) The 

court explained that “[t]his case was not final, for purposes of

the Estrada presumption, because the ‘criminal prosecution 

or proceeding’ brought against defendant was not complete 

when the ameliorative legislation at issue took effect. [Citation.]

Defendant had not exhausted direct review of the order causing 

his carceral punishment to take effect. The time for him to 

seek that review had not expired. And he had not successfully 

completed probation.” (Ibid.) The revocation of probation 

did not prevent Esquivel from challenging the validity of his

sentence on appeal because the revocation was not yet final.
8

The same is true in this case. The trial court terminated 

Canedos’s probation in 2020, but that decision was still on 

appeal, and therefore not yet final for purposes of Estrada, 

when Assembly Bill No. 1950 became effective.

The Attorney General contends that the Legislature 

did not intend for Assembly Bill No. 1950 to apply retroactively 

to defendants like Canedos, noting that the law contains no

mechanism for shortening existing probation terms, and does not

address retroactive application to defendants who violated the 

terms of their probation before the law became effective. But this

argument misunderstands the Estrada presumption. Silence on 

the question of retroactivity means that an ameliorative law is

fully retroactive as a matter of “presumed legislative intent.” 

(Esquivel, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 680.) If the Legislature means 

to limit the scope of retroactive application, it must so specify: 

“Our cases do not ‘dictate to legislative drafters the forms in 

which laws must be written’ to express an intent to modify or 

limit the retroactive effect of an ameliorative change; rather, 

they require ‘that the Legislature demonstrate its intention 

with sufficient clarity that a reviewing court can discern and 

effectuate it.’ ” (Conley, supra, 63 Cal.4th at pp. 656–657.) 

Thus, in Conley, the court held that Proposition 36, which 

limited the application of the “Three Strikes” law, was not fully 

retroactive because the electorate created a specific mechanism 

for convicted defendants to seek resentencing. (Conley, supra,

63 Cal.4th at pp. 657–659.) The court explained that “[w]here, 

as here, the enacting body creates a special mechanism for 

application of the new lesser punishment to persons who have 

previously been sentenced, and where the body expressly makes 

retroactive application of the lesser punishment contingent on 
9

a court’s evaluation of the defendant’s dangerousness, we can 

no longer say with confidence, as we did in Estrada, that the 

enacting body lacked any discernible reason to limit application 

of the law with respect to cases pending on direct review.” (Id.

at pp. 658–659.) Assembly Bill No. 1950 contains no equivalent 

provision, and there is no basis for us to infer a limitation on the 

retroactive effect of the law.

Two additional recent cases support our position that 

Assembly Bill No. 1950 applies retroactively to Canedos. 

In People v. Superior Court (Lara) (2018) 4 Cal.5th 299, 

the Supreme Court held that Proposition 57, which barred

prosecutors from initiating charges against juvenile defendants 

in adult court, applied fully retroactively to a case not yet final. 

The defendant in the case had been validly charged in adult 

court before the law was enacted, and the trial court, finding 

Proposition 57 retroactive, transferred the case to the juvenile 

court for a fitness hearing. The People sought writ relief, but 

the Supreme Court ultimately agreed with the trial court that 

the defendant was entitled to the benefit of Proposition 57

despite the prior filing of charges in adult court. (Lara, supra, 

at pp. 307–314.) In People v. Frahs (2020) 9 Cal.5th 618, the 

Supreme Court likewise held that a new law creating a diversion 

program for defendants with mental health disorders applied 

retroactively to the defendant’s case, which was pending appeal 

of defendant’s conviction when the new program was enacted. 

Although the defendant was convicted of robbery before the law 

became effective, the court remanded the case to the trial court 

to hold a mental health eligibility hearing, with the possibility 

of ultimately dismissing the charges against him. (Id. at 

pp. 640−641.) Thus, in both cases, the commencement of 
10

proceedings under existing law did not deny the defendant the

benefit of the retroactive application of a new law rendering the 

prior proceedings potentially invalid.

The court in Faial distinguished these cases from Assembly 

Bill No. 1950 on the ground that “the laws in Lara and Frahs did 

not contemplate obliteration of the offenders’ accountability for 

conduct predating the new laws; rather, the offenders remained 

answerable for such conduct through the juvenile justice system 

or through the mental health diversion program.” (Faial, supra,

75 Cal.App.5th at p. 746.) We do not believe this distinction 

is dispositive. First, Estrada retroactivity applies not only in 

cases like Frahs and Lara, where a new law creates a mechanism 

for possible reduced punishment, but also where a new law 

eliminates all culpability for a defendant’s conduct. For example, 

in People v. Rossi (1976) 18 Cal.3d 295, the Legislature 

decriminalized oral copulation between consenting adults after 

the defendant was convicted of the offense. The Supreme Court

held that Estrada required reversing the conviction (id. at 

pp. 302–304) despite the fact that, as the dissent noted, this 

would allow the “defendant to entirely escape punishment 

for her offense” (id. at p. 305 (dis. opn. of Clark, J.)). Courts 

have reached similar conclusions where a change in the law 

decriminalized a defendant’s conduct in selling devices to allow 

piracy of pay television service (People v. Babylon (1985) 39 

Cal.3d 719, 721) and in possessing medical marijuana (People v. 

Trippet (1997) 56 Cal.App.4th 1532, 1544–1545). The court in 

Faial cited no authority to support its conclusion that a different 

rule should apply here.

Second, Assembly Bill No. 1950 does not “obliterate” a 

defendant’s liability for criminal conduct. It simply shortens 
11

the maximum time during which a defendant may be required 

to obey terms of probation or punished for violating those terms. 

Indeed, as the court in Faial acknowledged, this was the purpose 

of the law as indicated in the legislative history. The drafters 

of the law “acted on studies showing that probation services are

‘most effective during the first 18 months of supervision’ and

that ‘providing increased supervision and services earlier reduces 

an individual’s likelihood to recidivate.’ ” (Faial, supra, 75 

Cal.App.5th at p. 744.) Reducing “probation periods would not 

only ‘ “decrease the amount of time that an individual must 

suffer for a prior misdeed,” ’ but also ‘ “has the added benefit of 

incentivizing compliance.” ’ ” (Ibid.)

Unlike the Faial court, we conclude that it is consistent 

with these stated purposes of the law to apply it retroactively 

to defendants like Canedos who violated the terms of their 

probation before the law became effective. The Legislature 

believed it would be counterproductive to incarcerate defendants

for minor violations of the terms of their probation committed 

more than two years after the original offense. Consistent 

with that purpose, if the violation is serious, as in this case, 

the defendant may be prosecuted for a new crime. Indeed, a

jury convicted Canedos of assault with a deadly weapon, and 

the court sentenced him to four years in prison.

We recognize that retroactively applying Assembly 

Bill No. 1950 to defendants with existing violations does not 

“ ‘ “incentiviz[e] compliance” ’ ” with probation rules (Faial, 

supra, 75 Cal.App.5th at p. 744), but this is not enough to 

overcome the Estrada presumption where neither the statute 

nor the legislative history explicitly addresses restricting 

retroactivity. (See Conley, supra, 63 Cal.4th at pp. 656–657.) 
12

In Kuhnel, the same division of the Court of Appeal 

that issued Faial offered a separate justification for holding 

that Assembly Bill No. 1950 does not apply retroactively to 

existing probation violations. The court relied on two statutes 

governing the revocation of probation. The first, section 1203.3, 

subdivision (a), provides that “[t]he court has the authority 

at any time during the term of probation to revoke, modify, 

or change its order of suspension of imposition or execution of 

sentence.” (Italics added.) This means that “ ‘[a]n order revoking 

probation must be made within the period of time circumscribed 

in the order of probation. Otherwise, the probationary period 

terminates automatically on the last day.’ ” (Hilton v. Superior 

Court (2014) 239 Cal.App.4th 766, 773, italics omitted.) Next, 

section 1203.2, subdivision (a) provides that the trial court’s 

action to revoke probation, “summary or otherwise, shall serve 

to toll the running of the period of supervision.” As the Supreme 

Court explained in People v. Leiva (2013) 56 Cal.4th 498 (Leiva), 

the purpose of this statute is to allow trial courts time to deal 

with violations occurring near the end of a probation term. By 

tolling the probation term for a reasonable period, the statute 

“preserve[s] the trial court’s authority to hold a formal probation 

violation hearing at a time after probation would have expired 

with regard to a violation that was alleged to have occurred

during the probationary period.” (Id. at pp. 514−515.)

We agree with the Kuhnel court’s application of these 

statutes to the specific facts of that case. Kuhnel involved a 

defendant sentenced to three years of probation for misdemeanor 

embezzlement. (Kuhnel, supra, 75 Cal.App.5th at p. 729.) Under 

Assembly Bill No. 1950, the maximum probation term for most 

misdemeanor offenses is one year. (§ 1203a.) The defendant 
13

violated her probation within 11 months of her conviction. Thus, 

even under the new law, she could be held liable for violating 

probation. The prosecution, which had no reason to believe it 

was facing a ticking clock, waited two additional months before 

seeking to revoke her probation. The court reasoned that 

Estrada “does not require us to play ‘gotcha’ with the prosecution, 

imposing an after-the-fact, artificial deadline for summary 

revocation. The rationale of Estrada provides no basis for 

departing from the general rule of prospective application when 

analyzing the date by which a court must have summarily 

revoked probation in order to preserve its authority to adjudicate 

a violation committed during a probationer’s first year.” (Kuhnel, 

supra, 75 Cal.App.5th at p. 736.)

We do not find this reasoning persuasive, however, in 

cases like Canedos’s, where the defendant’s misconduct occurred

outside of the maximum probation term under Assembly Bill 

No. 1950. In these cases, the violation did not “occur[ ] during

the probationary period” (Leiva, supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 515) as 

amended by the new statute. Thus, there is no justification for

tolling the probation term under section 1203.2, subdivision (a).

C. Application to Canedos

Because Assembly Bill No. 1950 applies retroactively 

to Canedos’s case, the maximum duration of his probation was 

two years, expiring in January 2018. Thus, by the time Canedos 

committed assault with a deadly weapon in 2019, the court 

no longer had jurisdiction to revoke his probation. (See Butler, 

supra, 75 Cal.App.5th at pp. 220–221, petn. for review pending.) 
14

We must therefore reverse the trial court’s order revoking 

probation.

2

In many cases, that would not be the end of the story:

We would need to remand the case to the trial court for a full 

resentencing hearing. Under the full sentencing rule, when 

we overturn a portion of a defendant’s sentence and remand 

the case, “the resentencing court has jurisdiction to modify 

every aspect of the sentence, and not just the portion” that was 

the basis of the resentencing hearing. (People v. Buycks (2018) 

5 Cal.5th 857, 893.) “This rule is justified because an aggregate 

prison term is not a series of separate independent terms, but

one term made up of interdependent components. The invalidity

of one component infects the entire scheme.” (People v. Hill

(1986) 185 Cal.App.3d 831, 834.) 

The trial court is bound by a significant restriction on 

its resentencing authority after a successful appeal, however:

The new sentence must be no more severe than the original 

one.

3 (People v. Hanson (2000) 23 Cal.4th 355, 358–360.) This 

2 As we noted above (see Discussion part B., ante), our 

reversal of Canedos’s sentence on the probation violation of 

course does not affect his conviction or sentence for assault 

with a deadly weapon, which we affirmed in our prior opinion 

in this case. (People v. Canedos, supra, B307948.)

3 We requested supplemental briefing on the question of 

whether we should consider Canedos’s plea based on an indicated 

sentence analogous to a plea bargain. We now view this issue 

as immaterial because even if we were to treat Canedos’s guilty 

plea as analogous to a plea bargain for purposes of resentencing, 

the same restriction on the length of his sentence would apply. 

(See Butler, supra, 75 Cal.App.5th at p. 225, petn. for review 

pending.)
15

requirement is consistent with the function of Estrada to allow

defendants to benefit from retroactive ameliorative changes in 

the law, as well as with the intent of the Legislature in enacting 

Assembly Bill No. 1950 to reduce the risk to probationers 

of reincarceration. (See Stewart, supra, 62 Cal.App.5th at 

pp. 1073–1074, review granted.)

In this case, because any other sentence the court might 

impose for his 2016 convictions would be more severe than 

the original order suspending his sentence and placing him 

on four years of probation, there is no reason to remand for 

resentencing. Thus, we see no alternative but to order the trial

court to reduce Canedos’s sentence to two years of probation, 

vacate its finding that Canedos violated probation, and to strike 

the portion of the prison sentence attributable to that finding. 

(See Butler, supra, 75 Cal.App.5th at pp. 225–226, petn. for 

review pending.)
16

DISPOSITION

The court’s finding that Canedos violated probation 

is vacated and the 2 years 8 months portion of the sentence 

attributable to the probation violation is stricken. The court 

is directed to enter an order modifying Canedos’s term of

probation to two years in accordance with Penal Code 

section 1203.1, subdivision (a) as amended by Assembly Bill 

No. 1950, reinstating probation, and terminating probation 

nunc pro tunc to January 12, 2018. The court shall resentence 

Canedos to four years in prison for the 2020 conviction of assault

with a deadly weapon. The trial court is also directed to prepare

an amended abstract of judgment and to forward a certified copy 

to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION.

ROTHSCHILD, P. J.

We concur:

BENDIX, J.

CRANDALL, J.*

* Judge of the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court, 

assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 

of the California Constitution.