Court Opinion

ID: 9951159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-15 18:02:40.56094+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:35:37.032793
License: Public Domain

Filed 3/14/24 P. v. Spengler 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   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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,                                                  B331068, consolidated with
                                                              B331084
           Plaintiff and Respondent,
                                                              (Los Angeles County
           v.                                                 Super. Ct. Nos. KA075833
                                                              & KA099426)
 MICHAEL R. SPENGLER,

      Defendant and
 Appellant.

     APPEAL from orders of the Superior Court of Los Angeles
County, Douglas Sortino and Rubiya Nur, Judges. Dismissed.

     Murray Kamionski, 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.

                              ******
       Michael Spengler (defendant) purports to appeal two orders
denying him a refund of the fines and assessments he already
paid for two felony convictions he sustained back in 2006 and
2013. We lack jurisdiction to entertain this appeal, so dismiss it.
The appeal also lacks merit.
         FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I.     Defendant’s 2006 Drug Conviction
       A.    Plea and sentence
       In August 2006, and as pertinent here, defendant pled no
contest to a single count of possession of methamphetamine as a
felony (Health & Saf. Code, § 11377, subd. (a)).1 The trial court
placed defendant on three years of probation pursuant to the
then-existing “Proposition 36” drug rehabilitation program (Prop.
36, as approved by voters, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 7, 2000)). When
defendant violated that probation (and committed a new crime),
the trial court sentenced him to two years in prison. The court
also imposed a $200 restitution fine (pursuant to Penal Code
section 1202.4, subd. (b)),2 a $20 court security assessment
(pursuant to Penal Code section 1465.8, subd. (a)(1)), and a $160

1    Defendant also entered a plea to a misdemeanor count of
vandalism and admitted he had a prior prison term.

2     All further statutory references are to the Penal Code
unless otherwise indicated.

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lab fee (pursuant to Health and Safety Code section 11372.5,
subd. (a)). The court imposed but stayed an additional $200
parole revocation fine (pursuant to Penal Code section 1202.45).
       B.     Redesignation as a misdemeanor
       In July 2017, defendant filed a petition pursuant to section
1170.18 asking to have his 2006 felony drug conviction
redesignated as a misdemeanor. The trial court granted his
petition on August 3, 2017.
II.    Defendant’s 2013 Drug Conviction
       A.     Plea and sentence
       In January 2013, and as pertinent here, defendant pled no
contest to a single count of possession of methamphetamine as a
felony (Health & Saf. Code, § 11377, subd. (a)). When defendant
did not report to a live-in drug rehabilitation center to serve a 16-
month sentence, the trial court in April 2013 sentenced
defendant to 16 months in jail. The court also imposed a $280
restitution fine, a $40 court security assessment, a $30 criminal
conviction assessment (Gov. Code, § 70373), and a $205 lab fee.
       B.     Redesignation as a misdemeanor
       In July 2017, defendant filed a petition pursuant to section
1170.18 asking to have his 2013 felony drug conviction
redesignated as a misdemeanor. The trial court granted his
petition on August 7, 2017.
III. Defendant’s Request For a Refund of Paid Fines and
Fees
       In both of the above-described cases, defendant in
September 2022 filed a letter with the trial court (1) asserting
that the fines and assessments he previously paid were “invalid”
in light of reduction of the felonies to misdemeanors, and (2)
requesting that the amounts he paid be refunded to him (by

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crediting those amounts to pay his other outstanding fines and
assessments in his prison account).
       The trial court construed the letters as motions, and denied
each of them.
IV. Appeal
       Defendant filed timely notices of appeal to each denial.
Those appeals were initially routed to the appellate division of
the superior court because the underlying offenses had been
redesignated as misdemeanors. However, the appellate division
transferred both appeals to this court after realizing that the
cases had originally been charged as felonies. We subsequently
consolidated the two separate appeals.
                           DISCUSSION
       Defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying his
request for a refund of the fees and assessments he paid. His
argument lacks merit for two reasons.
       First and foremost, we lack jurisdiction to entertain this
appeal. An appellate court must dismiss an appeal when the
trial court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the order being
appealed. (People v. King (2022) 77 Cal.App.5th 629, 639-640;
People v. Hodges (2023) 92 Cal.App.5th 186, 190; People v.
Burgess (2022) 86 Cal.App.5th 375, 381; People v. E.M. (2022) 85
Cal.App.5th 1075, 1085.) Here, the trial court lacked jurisdiction
to entertain defendant’s motions for a refund of fees and
assessments. That is because no procedural vehicle exists by
which defendant could seek a refund of his fees and assessments.
(People v. Escobedo (2023) 95 Cal.App.5th 440, 448 [requiring a
“‘“specific statutory avenue[]”’” for relief]; Burgess, at p. 381.) A
petition for a writ of habeas corpus is unavailable to defendant
because he is no longer in custody on the 2006 and 2013

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convictions. (§ 1473; cf. People v. Villa (2009) 45 Cal.4th 1063,
1069 [“custody” includes probation, parole, or a fine under
penalty of imprisonment].) A petition for relief under section
1473.7 is unavailable to defendant because that statute only
provides a vehicle for out-of-custody defendants on specified
grounds, and because a request for a refund of paid fees and
assessments is not one of those grounds. (§ 1473.7, subd. (a).) A
petition for relief under section 1170.18 itself is unavailable to
defendant because he already petitioned and obtained relief
under that provision back in 2017; section 1170.18 provides no
vehicle for subsequent petitions. All defendant is left with are his
“freestanding motion[s],” but such motions are “not a proper
procedural [vehicle] to seek relief.” (King, at p. 640; Escobedo, at
pp. 448-449.)3 Because defendant lacked a procedural vehicle, the
trial court lacked jurisdiction, and hence, so do we; this appeal
must therefore be dismissed.4

3      Although People v. Codinha (2023) 92 Cal.App.5th 976, 985
parted ways with this authority by holding that a trial court may
entertain a freestanding motion to correct an unauthorized
sentence, defendant here provides no authority for the
proposition that the imposition of fees and assessments attendant
to a felony conviction that was authorized at the time somehow
becomes unauthorized when the felony offense is redesignated as
a misdemeanor. As discussed in the text below, the law seems to
the contrary.

4      To the extent defendant on appeal is seeking to appeal the
trial court’s denial of his 2013 habeas corpus petition challenging
the prison officials’ failure to grant him access to various records,
we also dismiss that appeal because an order denying habeas
corpus relief cannot be appealed in a noncapital case. (Robinson
v. Lewis (2020) 9 Cal.5th 883, 895.)

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       Second, defendant’s motions for a refund lack merit even if
we were to entertain his appeals.
       As a threshold matter, the factual premise of defendant’s
entire argument is incorrect. Defendant suggests that, once his
convictions were reduced from felonies to misdemeanors, he
would not have been obligated to pay any fines or assessments.
He is wrong. The court security assessment and criminal
conviction assessments apply to both misdemeanors and felonies
(Pen. Code, § 1465.8; Gov. Code, § 70373); because defendant
remains convicted of misdemeanors, he still owed those
assessments. The parole revocation fine for the 2006 conviction
was stayed, so defendant never paid it (and thus is not entitled to
a refund of an amount he never paid). And a restitution fine is
also owed for misdemeanors, albeit at half the amount as for
felonies—so defendant would at most be entitled to a refund of a
total of $240—that is, $100 (one half the $200 fine) for the 2006
conviction and $140 (one half of the $280 fine) for the 2013
conviction.
       Further, the legal premise of defendant’s argument is
unsupported. Defendant broadly asserts that “due process” and
the “Excess [sic] Fines” clause of the Eighth Amendment entitle
him to a refund, while simultaneously and freely admitting that
he can find no statutory or decisional basis for his assertions.
Nor have we found any. The statute that provides for the
redesignation of certain felony offenses to misdemeanors—section
1170.18—does not provide for a complete resentencing (which
might include a recalculation of fines and assessments) when, as
here, the felony sentence “has [been] completed.” (§ 1170.18,
subds. (f) & (g).) Although that statute also provides that a
redesignated offense “shall be considered a misdemeanor for all

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purposes” (id., subd. (j)), it does not expressly provide for a refund
of previously paid fines and assessments. This “misdemeanor for
all purposes” language is not a panacea that completely hits the
reset button: In In re C.B. (2018) 6 Cal.5th 118, 129, for example,
our Supreme Court held that the redesignation of a felony as a
misdemeanor did not entitle a defendant to have his DNA
expunged from the statewide database (even though the DNA
was initially entered because the offense was initially a felony),
because the collection of the DNA sample was effectively a “done
deal” and nothing in section 1170.18 required expungement. In
re C.B.’s logic applies with equal force here. Any fines or
assessments defendant already paid are a “done deal,” and
nothing in section 1170.18 mandates their refund. What is more,
because our Legislature has in other circumstances explicitly
addressed the issue of whether a defendant must pay outstanding
fines and assessments after the repeal of those fines and
assessments (People v. Lopez-Vinck (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 945,
949-954), we must give effect to our Legislature’s silence with
regard to unpaid or already paid fees when relief is granted
under section 1170.18 (People v. Trevino (2001) 26 Cal.4th 237,
242 [Legislature’s use of different language in different
provisions addressing the same subject connotes a different
meaning]).
      The authority defendant does provide is irrelevant. He
cites Nelson v. Colorado (2017) 581 U.S. 128, but Nelson holds
that a defendant is entitled to a refund of criminal fines and fees
when his convictions are vacated (id. at p. 130); Nelson does not
help defendant because his convictions were not vacated—they
were redesignated as misdemeanors. Defendant also cites section

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1297, but that statute provides for a refund of money a defendant
himself puts up for bail; the issue here is not bail. (§ 1297.)
                          DISPOSITION
      For all these reasons, we dismiss this appeal.
      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.

                                    ______________________, J.
                                    HOFFSTADT

We concur:

_________________________, P. J.
LUI

_________________________, J.
CHAVEZ

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