Court Opinion

ID: 9718620
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:28:10.032693+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:00.771702
License: Public Domain

KAUS, P. J., Concurring and Dissenting.
People v. Olivas, 17 Cal.3d 236 [131 Cal.Rptr. 55, 551 P.2d 375] raises three specific questions. One: whether, as defendant contends, the duration of a Youth Authority commitment after conviction of an alternative felony-misdemeanor, is necessarily limited to the maximum jail time which could be imposed on an adult, if the sentencing court determined to treat such adult as a misdemeanant. Two: if the answer to this question is “no,” how we should dispose of this particular case, having in mind that when the trial court sentenced defendant it was ignorant of the equal protection problem posed by Olivas. Three: how Olivas affects youthful defendants convicted of felony-misdemeanors and sentenced by trial courts aware of Olivas.
As will be seen, I agree with the majority that the answer to the first question is “no.” I disagree, however, with respect to its disposition of this particular case. Finally, since this case obviously does not involve a court aware of Olivas, I find it unnecessary to answer the third question.
I
I do not agree with defendant that Olivas inevitably puts a misdemeanor “lid” on the maximum Youth Authority confinement of a defendant found guilty of having committed a felony-misdemeanor.
Olivas merely holds, on equal protection grounds, that in a straight misdemeanor case where the maximum incarceration that could be suffered by an adult is six months in jail, Youth Authority incarceration *653cannot exceed the adult maximum. This equal protection argument is inapplicable in this case since section 12020 of the Penal Code provides for punishment “by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year or in a state prison for not less than one year nor more than three years.” Obviously an adult could have been sent to prison for three years. Therefore, if defendant’s Youth Authority commitment cannot exceed one year, the reason must be found in a California statute, rather than in the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Penal Code section 17, subdivisions (b) (2), provides that “When a crime is punishable ... by imprisonment in the state prison ... or imprisonment in the county jail, it is a misdemeanor for all purposes . . . [w]hen the court commits the defendant to the Youth Authority.” In different contexts, People v. Hannon, 5 Cal.3d 330, 340 [96 Cal.Rptr. 35, 486 P.2d 1235], and People v. Navarro, 7 Cal.3d 248, 265-271 [102 Cal.Rptr. 137, 497 P.2d 481], held that Penal Code section 17, subdivisions (b) (2), means precisely what it says.1 The question is, however, whether absent a limitation derived from the equal protection clause, a Youth Authority commitment in excess of one year is irreconcilable with the “misdemeanor for all purposes” label.
I agree that it is not. There is no statute which prescribes a maximum Youth Authority confinement of one year for misdemeanants. The only applicable statute is section 1770 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, which provides that persons convicted of misdemeanors and committed to the Youth Authority must be discharged after a “two year period of control or when the person reaches his 23d birthday, whichever occurs later . . . .” Section 19a of the Penal Code does, of course, limit jail confinement for misdemeanants to one year, but absent equal protection leverage, that statute obviously does not apply when the defendant has not been sentenced to jail.
II
In Olivas the statutory maximum of section 1770 was shortened to six months because it was an incontrovertible fact that an adult convicted of *654the same crime could not have been confined for a longer period. The majority is, of course, quite correct in holding that, applying Olivas to a violation of section 12020 of the Penal Code, the maximum possible Youth Authority confinement is three years—that being the maximum prison confinement that could be suffered by an adult, if such an adult is sentenced as a felon. This, however, is only the upper limit of confinement which equal protection demands and presupposes that an adult in the defendant’s shoes would have been sentenced as a felon.
Manifestly as far as this defendant is concerned we have no such assurance. Not being aware of any equal protection problem, the trial court committed defendant to the Youth Authority after defense counsel had asked that the court “reduce [the offense] to a misdemeanor” and the prosecutrix had announced that a Youth Authority commitment would be “treated as a misdemeanor”—an obvious reference to section 17, subdivision (b)(2) of the Penal Code. In this fashion the trial court was caused to leapfrog the question which Olivas makes relevant by way of the equal protection clause: what would have been defendant’s maximum confinement had he been an adult?
Ill
As I said at the outset, I do not think that this case calls for a holding or declaration with respect to the maximum Youth Authority confinement of juveniles committed to the Youth Authority by a trial court fully cognizant of the impact of the equal protection clause. Personally I should have thought that in such, a case a juvenile is entitled to a finding how the court would have handled an adult defendant, but that is neither here nor there. As far as this defendant is concerned, he is clearly entitled to a reconsideration of the sentence in the light of Olivas.
I therefore dissent from the disposition of the case.
A petition for a rehearing was denied November 1, 1976, and the opinion was modified, to read as printed above. Kaus, P. J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied December 16, 1976.

Hannon held that when a youthful offender, convicted of an alternative felony-misdemeanor. is returned to the community court under section 1737.1 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, he can only be sentenced as a misdemeanant. Navarro held that a previous conviction on an alternative felony-misdemeanor which resulted in a Youth Authority commitment, is not a previous felony conviction for the purpose of determining eligibility under the narcotics rehabilitation program.