Court Opinion

ID: 9782249
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:13:52.646444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:54.277617
License: Public Domain

GEORGE, C. J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the majority’s conclusions regarding the first two issues discussed in the opinion, but respectfully dissent from its resolution of the third issue. With regard to that issue—namely, whether the same prior conviction can be used (1) to bring into play the “One Strike” law as the basis for calculating the defendant’s minimum term under the “Three Strikes” law, (2) to render a defendant a second or third strike offender for purposes of the Three Strikes law, and (3) to impose an additional (five-year) enhancement under Penal Code section 667, subdivision (a)1—I agree with the Court of Appeal that such multiple use of a single prior conviction is inconsistent with the language and purpose of section 667.61, subdivision (f), one of the provisions of the One Strike law.
Section 667.61, subdivision (f) provides in relevant part: “If only the minimum number of [triggering] circumstances . . . which are required for *135the punishment provided in [the One Strike law] have been pled and proved, that circumstance or those circumstances shall be used as the basis for imposing the term provided in [the One Strike law] rather than being used to impose the punishment authorized under any other law, unless another law provides for a greater penalty. However, if any additional [triggering] circumstance or circumstances . . . have been pled and proved, the minimum number of circumstances shall be used as the basis for imposing the term provided in [the One Strike law], and any other additional circumstance or circumstances shall be used to impose any punishment or enhancement authorized under any other law.”
In my view, this language clearly indicates that the Legislature intended that a triggering circumstance that is pleaded and proved under the One Strike law may be used either under the One Strike law or under another punishment provision, but not both. In a case such as Acosta, where the triggering circumstance that brings defendant within the One Strike law is a prior conviction, I believe section 667.61, subdivision (f) permits that prior conviction to be used either to bring the defendant within the reach of the One Strike law, or under another law if the use of the prior conviction under that other law will result in a greater sentence than under the One Strike law—but not both.
In determining that, notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of section 667.61, subdivision (f), the trial court in Acosta properly used the same prior to bring into play the 25-year-to-life punishment of the One Strike law, to triple that 25-year-to-life term under the third strike provisions of the Three Strikes law, and also to add a five-year enhancement under section 667, subdivision (a), the majority reasons that “Acosta’s indeterminate life sentence is not being imposed under both the One Strike law and the Three Strikes law; it is being imposed only under the Three Strikes law, with the minimum term of that indeterminate term set by reference to the One Strike law. Thus, the trial court’s calculation does not, in contravention of subdivision (f) of the One Strike law (§ 667.61, subd. (f)), use a single triggering circumstance to impose punishment under both the One Strike law and another penalty provision.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 130.)
In my view, this reasoning is unpersuasive. When a prior conviction is utilized to bring a defendant within the second or third strike provisions of the Three Strikes law and when, at the same time, the minimum sentence under the Three Strikes law is calculated by multiplying the sentence the defendant would otherwise receive under the One Strike law on the basis of the same prior conviction, I believe that, as a practical matter, the prior conviction is being used to impose punishment under both the Three Strikes *136law and under the One Strike law. In concluding that the limitation embodied in section 667.61, subdivision (f) does not come into play when a defendant’s minimum term under the Three Strikes law is “set by reference to the One Strike law” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 130, italics added)—on the theory that, in such an instance, a defendant’s sentence has not been imposed under the One Strike law but “only under the Three Strikes law” (ibid., italics added)—the majority adopts an artificial formalism that drains the meaning from the limitation on the One Strike law embodied in section 667.61, subdivision (f).
In attempting to defend the validity of its proposed conclusion, the majority suggests that the “problem with the construction of the Court of Appeal... is perhaps more obvious in the context of a defendant with only one prior conviction [who qualifies, based on that prior conviction, as a second strike offender under the Three Strikes law and for treatment under the One Strike law].” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 132.) In such a case, according to the majority, unless such a defendant’s sentence is calculated, first, by reference to the indeterminate life sentence mandated by the One Strike law, and, second, by doubling the minimum term of that One Strike life sentence pursuant to the Three Strikes law, the two statutes will not be “properly harmonize[d].” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 131.)
In my view, the majority’s claim in this regard overlooks the principal objective of the One Strike law as well as the limitation set forth in section 667, subdivision (f). The One Strike law was intended to fill a gap that its drafters believed was left by the Three Strikes law, by authorizing the imposition of an indeterminate life sentence—similar to that imposed by the Three Strikes law for third strike offenders—on certain sex offenders even if they do not have two prior strikes for purposes of the Three Strikes law. Given this purpose, it is entirely reasonable for the Legislature to have intended, in the hypothetical posed by the majority, that a single triggering prior conviction could be used either to bring a defendant within the reach of the One Strike law (and thereby to subject the defendant to the stringent life-term sentence authorized by that law) or to bring into play some other sentencing law if that other law imposed a greater punishment than that authorized by the One Strike law, but that this prior conviction could not be used both to trigger a One Strike sentence and to multiply that One Strike sentence under another sentencing provision. When the prosecution has pleaded and proved only one triggering circumstance for purposes of the One Strike law, the imposition of “only” the life-term sentence authorized by the One Strike law hardly can be characterized as unduly lenient or inconsistent with the purpose of the Three Strikes law. In my view, the language of the Three Strikes law was not intended, and should not be interpreted, to *137preclude the Legislature from establishing an alternative sentencing scheme, like the One Strike law, that limits the circumstances under which a sentence prescribed by the One Strike law is to be doubled or tripled under the Three Strikes law.
Finally, the majority additionally relies upon a number of decisions applying other sentencings provisions, but those decisions all are distinguishable from the present case. Unlike the statutory language involved in those decisions, the language of section 667.61, subdivision (f) clearly indicates that the Legislature contemplated that a triggering circumstance (including a triggering prior conviction) would be used under the One Strike law “rather than being used to impose the punishment authorized under any other law” (italics added), and not in addition to being used to impose punishment under another sentencing law.
Accordingly, in Acosta, I would affirm the Court of Appeal’s reduction of defendant’s sentence from 85 years to life to 55 years to life. In all other respects, I concur in the conclusions reached by the majority.
Kennard, J., concurred.

 All further section references are to the Penal Code.