Court Opinion

ID: 9797357
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:19:01.791789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:54:32.228356
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring.
I agree with the majority that, because the state and county penalties were mandatory under a proper construction of Penal Code section 14641 and Government Code section 76000, the Court of Appeal did not err in correcting the trial court’s omission of the penalties even though the People raised the issue for the first time on appeal. Accordingly, I join the majority in affirming the judgment of the Court of Appeal. In reaching that result, however, I differ with my colleagues on several points. As will appear, I believe that subdivision (d) of section 1464 (section 1464(d)) refers to a defendant who is subject to an order of conditional imprisonment pursuant to section 1205, subdivision (a).
*1158First, I disagree with the majority that “the language of section 1464, subdivision (d) appears clear” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 1154), such that “ ‘there is no need for construction [or] . . . resort to indicia of the intent of the Legislature’ ” (ibid., quoting Lungren v. Deukmejian (1988) 45 Cal.3d 727, 735 [248 Cal.Rptr. 115, 755 P.2d 299]). To the contrary, I agree with defendant that in permitting sentencing judges to waive state penalties “[i]n any case where a person convicted of any offense, to which [section 1464] applies, is in prison until the fine is satisfied,” section 1464(d) is ambiguous. (Italics added.) Although on its face the phrase “in prison” might refer to a defendant who is “in the midst of serving” a prison term, as the majority says (maj. opn., ante, at p. 1155), when read in context it reasonably might also include circumstances in which a defendant has been sentenced to prison until the fine is satisfied, but has not actually been taken away and placed inside of a prison facility. Similarly, the phrase “until the fine is satisfied” might suggest the majority’s gloss that the defendant is in prison “because he failed to pay a fine” (ibid.), but it might also refer to the defendant’s being in prison at the time a fine is to be paid.
As section 1464(d) is ambiguous, we must in construing it consider indicia of legislative intent beyond its plain language. (Hoechst Celanese Corp. v. Franchise Tax Bd. (2001) 25 Cal.4th 508, 519 [106 Cal.Rptr.2d 548, 22 P.3d 324] [when a statute “is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation, then we look to ‘extrinsic aids, including the ostensible objects to be achieved, the evils to be remedied, the legislative history, public policy, contemporaneous administrative construction, and the statutory scheme of which the statute is a part’ ”].) The majority impliedly concedes the point when it looks to section 1205, subdivision (a) for guidance in interpreting section 1464(d). (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1155.) If section 1464(d) were unambiguous, no such guidance would be necessary.
Second, I cannot join in the construction of section 1464(d) on which the majority settles—viz., that the waiver provision “only applies if the defendant is in the midst of serving a term of imprisonment” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 1155). Although the majority’s construction is perhaps literally faithful to that part of the statute that refers to a person who “is in prison,” as the majority’s own authority points out, “[l]iteral construction should not prevail if it is contrary to the legislative intent apparent in the statute” (Lungren v. Deukmejian, supra, 45 Cal.3d at p. 735). Here, it is apparent from the statutory language conferring waiver authority “[i]n any case” to which the section applies that the Legislature intended to confer waiver authority in a class of cases, not just at a specified time, i.e., when the defendant is physically in prison. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 1156.)
The majority’s construction of section 1464(d) leads to the absurd result that a judge may waive penalties only if the defendant already is actually *1159inside of a prison, but not otherwise. Thus, a judge may not waive penalties in the case of a defendant who is in court but, as a consequence of a sentence being imposed at that very proceeding and which includes both incarceration and a fine, will be “in prison until the fine is satisfied,” even if the judge is persuaded that “the payment of [applicable penalties] would work a hardship on the person convicted or his or her immediate family” (§ 1464(d)). Such a limitation runs contrary to the obvious intent of the statute.
Moreover, the majority’s construction imposes ludicrous inefficiencies on a sentencing judge’s exercise of discretion to waive penalties under section 1464(d). Under the majority’s construction, a defendant may not even seek a hardship waiver until “after execution of his sentence has begun” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 1157)—by what procedure the majority does not specify. The majority asserts that the trial court “necessarily retains the jurisdiction” to mitigate penalties “so long as the defendant faces the specter of imprisonment for failing to pay a fine” (ibid., citing People v. Karaman (1992) 4 Cal.4th 335, 351 [14 Cal.Rptr.2d 801, 842 P.2d 100]), but I am not persuaded. People v. Karaman speaks only to a trial court’s authority under the express terms of section 1170, subdivision (d) to recall a sentence and resentence the defendant within 120 days of the first day of commitment. (Karaman, supra, at p. 351.)
Third, the majority fails to avail itself of a more direct and sensible route to its result. As the majority points out, section 1205, subdivision (a) contains phraseology paralleling that in section 1464(d) and that also appeared in section 1464(d)’s precursor. (See maj. opn., ante, at pp. 1155-1156.) The two statutes, as the majority acknowledges, operate “in an analogous context” (id. at p. 1155).2 The majority opines that the slightly greater linguistic similarity between section 1464(d)’s precursor and section 1205, subdivision (a) over that between the two statutes as they exist today “strongly suggests that the Legislature [formerly] intended to give this phrase the same meaning in both statutes” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 1156) but inexplicably changed its mind and, when enacting the current section 1464(d), “narrowed the scope of a judge’s discretion to waive the penalties” (id. at p. 1156). As explained, I do not believe the legislative history demonstrates that the Legislature intended to hobble sentencing courts with a requirement that they first actually incarcerate, and then recall for resentencing, prisoners whose fees they desire to waive on hardship grounds.
A more reasonable construction of section 1464(d) is available. I submit that the Legislature, when authorizing a hardship waiver of penalties where *1160the defendant is to be “in prison until the fine is satisfied” (§ 1464(d)), was referring to penalties based on fines imposed with a section 1205 direction that the defendant “be imprisoned until the fine is satisfied” (id., subd. (a), italics added). Such an understanding would honor the statutory language by allowing waiver only when the court has sentenced the defendant to prison until payment of a fine, but would promote efficiency by allowing such waiver at the time of sentencing. It also would accord in commonsense fashion with recognized “judicial discretion to mitigate the defendant’s prison sentence prior to commencement of execution of (or restraint by) that sentence.” (People v. Karaman, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 350, original italics omitted, italics added.)
If a statute is amenable to alternative interpretations, the one that leads to the more reasonable result should be followed. (Lungren v. Deukmejian, supra, 45 Cal.3d at p. 735; Metropolitan Water Dist. v. Adams (1948) 32 Cal.2d 620, 630-631 [197 P.2d 543].) In this case, affirming on the ground that, in context, section 1464(d) evidently refers to penalties imposed on fines conditioned under section 1205, subdivision (a), rather than on the pretense that section 1464(d) is unambiguous, would reach the same result the majority reaches (on linguistically more defensible grounds), vindicate apparent legislative intent, and preserve commonsense efficiency in sentencing procedure.
In accordance with the foregoing, I would construe section 1464(d)’s phrase “is in prison until the fine is satisfied” to mean “is subject to an order of conditional imprisonment under section 1205, subdivision (a).” Because defendant’s prison sentence in this case was not imposed under section 1205, subdivision (a), the trial court had no discretion to waive the penalties and the Court of Appeal did not err in imposing them as mandatory.
Moreno, J., concurred.

Unlabeled section references are to the Penal Code.

Section 1464 concerns the imposition and management of state penalties on fines. Section 1205 concerns the imposition and management of fines. Section 1205, subdivision (a) provides, inter alia, that “[a] judgment that the defendant pay a fine, with or without other punishment, may also direct that he or she be imprisoned until the fine is satisfied . . . .”