Court Opinion

ID: 9788599
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:12:28.21024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:14.827207
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Dissenting.
A defendant who is convicted of a felony and who has previously served time in prison is subject to a one-year sentence enhancement. (Pen. Code, § 667.5.)1 Irrespective of the number of prior convictions, only one enhancement can be imposed if the defendant was in prison for the prior felonies during a single “continuous completed period of prison incarceration.” (§ 667.5, subd. (g).) That period includes “any reimprisonment after an escape from incarceration.” (Ibid.)
*1247Here, while in prison for a felony conviction (petty theft with a prior theft-related conviction), defendant escaped. He was caught, was convicted of felonious escape, and was returned to prison to complete his sentence for theft and to serve his sentence for escape. After his release he was convicted of yet another felony. The majority holds that two one-year enhancements under section 667.5 can be imposed: One for the theft, the other for the escape.
I disagree. Defendant served his prison sentence for theft and his sentence for escape at the same time. Consequently, under this court’s decision in In re Kelly (1983) 33 Cal.3d 267 [188 Cal.Rptr. 447, 655 P.2d 1282] (Kelly), defendant was subject to only a single one-year sentence enhancement.
I
In 1976, the Legislature enacted section 667.5 as part of the new determinate sentencing law. Subdivision (b) of that statute states that a defendant is subject to a one-year sentence enhancement for every “prior separate prison term” served. The phrase “prior separate prison term” is defined in subdivision (g) of section 667.5. The meaning of that definition is at issue here.
When originally enacted in 1976, section 667.5, subdivision (g), said: “A continuous completed period of prison incarceration imposed for the particular offense alone or in combination with sentences for other counts or sentences to be served concurrently or consecutively therewith including any reimprisonment on revocation of parole or new commitment for escape from such incarceration shall be deemed a single prior separate term for purposes of this section.” (Stats. 1976, ch. 1139, § 268, p. 5139, italics added.) Thus, a prison sentence for an escape was not a separate term but part of the original incarceration, and therefore not subject to a separate one-year sentence enhancement. The Attorney General does not contend otherwise, and the majority appears to concede that this is so. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 1245-1246.)
In 1977, the Legislature amended section 667.5’s subdivision (g) to provide: “A prior separate prison term for the purposes of this section shall mean a continuous completed period of prison incarceration imposed for the particular offense alone or in combination with concurrent or consecutive sentences for other crimes, including any reimprisonment on revocation of parole which is not accompanied by a new commitment to prison, and including any reimprisonment after an escape from incarceration.” (Italics added.) Did the amendment change the Legislature’s declaration the previous year that a sentence for escape from prison is part of the original incarceration? “No,” was the unanimous answer of this court in 1983 in Kelly, supra, 33 Cal.3d 267.
*1248The purpose of the 1977 amendment, Kelly said, was not to change the rule pertaining to escapes, but to revise the rule concerning parole revocations, which are also discussed in section 667.5’s subdivision (g). Kelly explained: “The Legislature . . . amended . . . subdivision (g) . . . to differentiate between a mere revocation of parole, and the revocation of parole which is accompanied by a new commitment. It must be inferred that the Legislature desired the revocation accompanied by a new commitment not to count in the ‘period of prison incarceration’ for the offense for which parole was revoked; instead, this new ‘period of prison incarceration’ should be counted as a new term based on the new commitment(Kelly, supra, 33 Cal.3d at p. 271.)
“In contrast,” the court in Kelly continued, “the 1977 amendment did not intrinsically change the phrase referring to reimprisonment after escape, which now reads: ‘. . . and including any reimprisonment after escape from such incarceration.’ The only difference is that this phrase is no longer interrupted by the parole revocation wording. There is no qualifying phrase such as ‘which is not accompanied by a new commitment to prison.’ ... It is obvious . . . that the Legislature intended to differentiate between the escape and parole situations (and amend one and not the other).” (Kelly, supra, 33 Cal.3d at p. 271, fn. 4, italics added.) I agree.
II
The majority faults Kelly for overlooking “the fact that the 1977 amendment deleted the phrase ‘new commitment for escape from such incarceration,’ and substituted the qualitatively different term ‘any reimprisonment after an escape.’ ” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1245.) According to the majority, the latter phrase, unlike the original version of section 667.5’s subdivision (g), applies only to a reimprisonment that is unaccompanied by a new prison sentence for escape. This is a strained reading of the statutory language. This court had it right in 1983 in Kelly, when it construed the 1977 amendment as indicative of the Legislature’s intent “to differentiate between the escape and parole situations . . . .” (Kelly, supra, 33 Cal.3d at p. 271, fn. 4.) The 1977 amendment, Kelly said, left unchanged the Legislature’s original declaration in 1976 that an escapee reimprisoned to finish his original sentence along with a new prison commitment for escape is serving a single term of imprisonment and therefore is subject only to a single one-year enhancement.
Legal commentators too have expressed that view. “Because of its close relationship to time in prison, reimprisonment for escape . . . does not start the running of a new and separate term, but is included in the old term. . . . Perhaps the legislature felt that treating such reimprisonment as a new term would give the sentencing judge or prosecutor too much leverage from one antisocial period in the criminal’s life. Such reimprisonment is instead *1249included in the term from which the inmate escaped . . . .” (Cassou & Taugher, Determinate Sentencing in California: The New Numbers Game (1978) 9 Pacific L.J. 5, 49.)
Although it would be reasonable to subject a prison escapee to a one-year sentence enhancement separate from the enhancement for the original imprisonment, that is a policy decision for the Legislature, not this court. And that is not what the Legislature did in 1976 when it enacted subdivision (g) of section 667.5, and when it amended that provision in 1977. The 1976 enactment and the 1977 amendment of section 667.5’s subdivision (g) were passed some 30 years ago, when sentence enhancements were far fewer and the prison terms imposed were much shorter than in recent times. The statutory provision at issue simply reflects the view of the Legislature at that time. One may not agree with that view, but it is not “absurd or illogical,” as the majority asserts. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1242.)
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which struck the one-year sentence enhancement for the prior prison term served for the escape conviction.

 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code.