Court Opinion

ID: 9379632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-15 21:02:13.560794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:56.709491
License: Public Domain

Filed 3/15/23 P. v. Ramsey CA3
                                           NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
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 This opinion has not been certified for publication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
                                      THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT
                                                     (Sacramento)
                                                            ----

 THE PEOPLE,                                                                                   C095822

                    Plaintiff and Respondent,                                      (Super. Ct. No. 06F07860)

           v.

 ERIC RAMSEY,

                    Defendant and Appellant.

         The trial court granted defendant Eric Ramsey’s motion to correct his custody
credits, and then issued an abstract of judgment that reflected only his credits as of the
date of his original sentencing, rather than as of the date of the correction. On appeal,
defendant argues he is entitled to an amended abstract of judgment that reflects the
interim custody credits to which he was entitled at the time his sentence was modified,
consistent with People v. Buckhalter (2001) 26 Cal.4th 20. The Attorney General agrees,

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and we agree with the parties. We remand the case for recalculation of defendant’s
current custody credits and the issuance of an amended abstract of judgment.
                                      BACKGROUND
        The factual details of this case are not relevant to the issue on appeal; it suffices to
say that in 2008, a jury found defendant guilty of murder (Pen. Code1, § 187; count one),
robbery (§ 211; count two), fraudulent use of a credit card (§ 484g, subd. (a); counts three
through six), and attempted fraudulent use of a credit card (§§ 664, 484g, subd. (a); count
seven). The trial court sentenced defendant to 25 years to life in state prison and
awarded him 645 days of credit for actual time served. We affirmed the judgment in an
unpublished opinion. (People v. Ramsey (Sept. 4, 2009, C059245) [nonpub. opn.].)
        In October 2021, defendant filed a motion to recalculate his custody credits,
asserting as relevant here that at the time of his 2008 sentencing he was entitled to 646
days--rather than 645 days--of credit for actual custody. The trial court acknowledged
that the previous award of 645 days should be corrected to 646 days and, accordingly,
granted defendant’s the motion in relevant part. The court then issued an amended
abstract of judgment, nunc pro tunc to the original resentencing date, which listed an
award of 646 days of actual custody credit. Defendant filed a notice of appeal.
        While the appeal was pending, appellate counsel sent a letter to the trial court
requesting an amended abstract of judgment that reflected defendant’s actual custody
credits as of the date the trial court had corrected defendant’s sentence, citing People v.
Buckhalter, supra, 26 Cal.4th 20. The letter argued the change in credits had been a
correction of a judicial error, and not just a clerical correction, and that the amended
abstract of judgment should thus reflect the additional actual custody credits defendant
had accrued up to the time of the correction. In August 2022, the trial court issued an

1   Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

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order agreeing with the letter, calculating defendant’s current actual custody credits at
5,822 days, and indicating a new abstract of judgment reflecting these credits would be
issued.2 The court then issued an amended abstract of judgment that again reflected only
646 actual custody credits.
       In September 2022, appellate counsel sent a second letter to the trial court
explaining that the new abstract of judgment still did not reflect the number of actual
custody credits the court had awarded and requesting an abstract that aligned with the
court’s order. A minute order from October 2022 states that appellate counsel sent an
email to the court “re CLARIFICATION ON CRT ORD CREDITS ABSTRACT HAS
BEEN AMENDED TO ADD LANGUAGE REQUESTED.” Defendant filed his
opening brief in this case on November 30, 2022. The clerk’s office at the trial court
filed a declaration with this court on December 2, 2022, stating it had “corrected the
Indeterminate Abstract of Judgment according to Judge Allen Sumner’s Order of
10/21/22. After speaking to Appellate Counsel she has stated that she is not satisfied
with the corrections and will address it in her brief asking the Third Appellate District
Court to address it in the decision of the case. Nothing was omitted.”
       The case was fully briefed on January 12, 2023, and assigned to this panel shortly
thereafter.
                                      DISCUSSION
       Defendant argues he is entitled to an amended abstract of judgment that reflects
the full amount of his actual custody credits, noting he has complied with the
requirements of section 1237.1. He asserts the trial court’s written order is not an
adequate substitute for an amended abstract of judgment. The Attorney General agrees

2 The record also contains an internal court e-mail from a research attorney explaining
the actual custody credit calculation as the number of days defendant had spent in
custody until the date of the order.

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the trial court must issue a new and updated abstract of judgment and provide it to
defendant if the court has not already done so. We also agree.
       A trial court “has jurisdiction to resentence a prisoner by amending the judgment
to correct its original, erroneous calculation of his presentence credits, and there is no
time limitation upon the right to move the trial court to correct the sentence due to
miscalculation of custody credits.” (People v. Little (1993) 19 Cal.App.4th 449, 451-
452.) Where a court modifies “a felony sentence during the term of imprisonment, the
trial court must calculate the actual time the defendant has already served and credit that
time against the ‘subsequent sentence.’ ” (People v. Buckhalter, supra, 26 Cal.4th at
p. 23.) “Section 1213 requires that a certified copy of the judgment or the abstract be
provided if the defendant is to be imprisoned . . . the abstract must summarize the
judgment that was imposed.” (People v. Hong (1998) 64 Cal.App.4th 1071, 1083.)
       For reasons that are unclear here, the trial court did not prepare a new abstract of
judgment that properly reflected defendant’s credits as of the date of the credits’
correction. We must remand for the trial court to recalculate defendant’s current custody
credits and issue a new abstract of judgment accordingly.

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                                      DISPOSITION
       The matter is remanded, and the trial court is directed to recalculate defendant’s
current custody credits and prepare an amended abstract of judgment that reflects the
result of the recalculation. The trial court is further directed to forward a certified copy
of the amended abstract of judgment to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed.

                                                         /s/
                                                   Duarte, Acting P. J.

We concur:

     /s/
Krause, J.

    /s/
McAdam, J.

 Judge of the Yolo County Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to
article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.

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