Court Opinion

ID: 9797444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:20:55.085958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:55:37.270821
License: Public Domain

*760WERDEGAR, J., Dissenting.
The $20 at issue in this case, which defendant was ordered to pay as a court security fee pursuant to Penal Code1 section 1465.8, subdivision (a)(1), is by any measure a trivial amount for the California Supreme Court to consider. But it is sometimes from such minutiae that legal problems arise. We require our government to turn square comers, even when a paltry few dollars are at stake. So it is here. Because the retroactive application of the security fee law violates defendant’s statutory right to be free of the retroactive application of the laws, I dissent.
Section 3 provides both the beginning and the end of the analysis. Since 1872, that section has provided that “[n]o part of [the Penal Code] is retroactive, unless expressly so declared.” This statutory language is clear and unequivocal and applies to all provisions of the Penal Code whether or not they impose a punitive or nonpunitive sanction. Because section 1465.8, subdivision (a)(1) does not expressly declare that it is retroactive, our work should be at an end.
As the majority explains, however, we must dig a little deeper. In In re Estrada (1965) 63 Cal.2d 740, 746 [48 Cal.Rptr. 172, 408 P.2d 948], we found the single sentence in section 3 “simply embodies the general rule of construction, coming to us from the common law, that when there is nothing to indicate a contrary intent in a statute it will be presumed that the Legislature intended the statute to operate prospectively and not retroactively. That mle of constmction, however, is not a straitjacket. Where the Legislature has not set forth in so many words what it intended, the rale of construction should not be followed blindly in complete disregard of factors that may give a clue to the legislative intent. It is to be applied only after, considering all pertinent factors, it is determined that it is impossible to ascertain the legislative intent.”
Later, in People v. Hayes (1989) 49 Cal.3d 1260, 1274 [265 Cal.Rptr. 132, 783 P.2d 719], we held that section 3 means that “[a] new statute is generally presumed to operate prospectively absent an express declaration of retroactivity or a clear and compelling implication that the Legislature intended otherwise.” (Italics added; cf. Evangelatos v. Superior Court (1988) 44 Cal.3d 1188, 1208-1209 [246 Cal.Rptr. 629, 753 P.2d 585] [“California continues to adhere to the time-honored principle . . . that in the absence of an express retroactivity provision, a statute will not be applied retroactively unless it is very clear from extrinsic sources that the Legislature or the voters must have intended a retroactive application” (italics added)].)
*761The interpretive gloss these cases place on the otherwise clear language of section 3 seems unnecessary and possibly incorrect, but the Legislature can rectify the situation should it so choose. Assuming (as I do) that those cases correctly interpret section 3, I nevertheless conclude section 1465.8, subdivision (a)(1) cannot be applied retroactively to defendant because no clear and convincing extrinsic evidence demonstrates the Legislature intended to apply the $20 security fee to those, like defendant, who committed their crimes before the law became effective.
Although the majority purports to find such evidence in the facts that the Legislature intended the fee to close a budget shortfall, that the money raised would replace money removed from judicial branch coffers, and that the law was passed as an urgency measure, this extrinsic evidence shows merely that the Legislature may have intended to apply section 1465.8, subdivision (a)(1) retroactively. I cannot, however, conclude it proves the Legislature intended a retroactive application by clear and convincing evidence. There is, for example, no clear statement in the legislative history that the Legislature intended the law to apply retroactively or that it considered for one moment the temporal difference between the date of the crime and the date of the eventual conviction. Moreover, that the Legislature desired to raise money quickly does not mean it desired to do so in the fastest way possible, contravening normal assumptions that new statutes apply prospectively only. The parties identify no legislative analysis of the amount of money that would have been lost if the law was applied prospectively only, or whether the amount lost by a prospective application would be of such an amount that it would seriously undermine the Legislature’s intended goal of funding court security. In short, while one can certainly speculate that the Legislature, had it considered the point, may have desired retroactive application of the security fee law, the evidence fails to satisfy the high standard that there exist clear and convincing evidence the Legislature intended a retroactive effect.
In sum, because section 1465.8, subdivision (a)(1) does not expressly declare that it is retroactive (as required by section 3), and because no clear and convincing evidence demonstrates the Legislature intended that the law apply retroactively, section 1465.8, subdivision (a)(1) cannot be applied to defendant. Because this statutory analysis disposes of the case, it is unnecessary to address the constitutional ex post facto issue. (See People v. Brown (2003) 31 Cal.4th 518, 534 [3 Cal.Rptr.3d 145, 73 P.3d 1137] [a court should not entertain constitutional claims unless necessary to dispose of a case]; People v. Reyes (1998) 19 Cal.4th 743,767 [80 Cal.Rptr.2d 734, 968 P.2d 445] (conc. & dis. opn. of Werdegar, J.) [same].)
*762Because the majority holds otherwise, I dissent.
Moreno, J., concurred.

 All statutory references are to this code.