Court Opinion

ID: 9795836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:39:48.656675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:38:06.943288
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In exchange for his agreement to plead no contest to two of the five felony counts charged, defendant was promised a sentence maximum, or “lid,” of three years and eight months. As memorialized by the trial court, the plea agreement expressly reserved defendant’s right to “argue for something less than three years and eight months.” Nothing in the agreement limited the grounds upon which defendant could argue for a lesser prison sentence, nor did the agreement include any determination that imposition of the lid sentence (or any longer sentence) was authorized under Penal Code section 654 (section 654). For this reason, defendant’s appeal based on section 654 is not an attack on the validity of the plea; he therefore was not required to obtain a certificate of probable cause to pursue it.
The majority holds that a plea agreement with a sentence lid “implies a mutual understanding” that the lid is a sentence the court could legally impose. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 768.) I disagree such an agreement carries with it any such necessary implication, in particular that it does so as to the defense’s understanding of the agreement. The specification of a maximum sentence in a plea agreement is consideration provided to, not by, the defendant, the defendant’s proffered consideration being his agreement to plead guilty or no contest. Thus in entering such a plea agreement the defendant makes no implied promise or representation as to the legality of the lid sentence.
*772The majority asserts: “From a defendant’s point of view, the purpose of a sentence lid is to protect the defendant from a greater sentence. Thus, a sentence lid provision in a plea agreement necessarily implies the defendant’s understanding and belief that in its absence the trial court might lawfully have imposed a greater sentence. If the maximum sentence authorized by law were at or below the specified sentence lid, the lid provision would be superfluous and of no benefit to the defendant.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 768.)
The majority’s reasoning rests on a false premise. A defendant agreeing to plead to a sentence lid does not necessarily believe that a greater sentence is legally possible. Advised by counsel, he may believe, for example, that section 654 prohibits all the combinations of terms that would produce a higher sentence, but at the same time be aware that because section 654 limits are subject to debate, the prosecutor might seek a higher sentence, the court might so sentence him, and an appeal might be unsuccessful. A defendant might, in other words, find the certainty of a sentence lid valuable despite any beliefs he may hold about section 654.
Additionally, the plea agreement might have other provisions—such as the prosecutor’s promise to dismiss some of the charges—that are of greater importance to the defense than the sentence lid. That a lid in a given case may prove of little or no value would not necessarily preclude a defendant’s agreement to a deal that included such a lid.
Finally, in some cases—and this is one—a sentence higher than the lid may be permitted even if under section 654 the lid is not. Here, the court could have sentenced defendant to four years on the stalking count alone (Pen. Code, § 646.9, subd. (b)) even if section 654 precludes the aggregate stalking/criminal threat sentence of three years and eight months (an issue not before this court). The lid was thus of value even if the specified lid sentence itself was precluded by section 654.1
*773In sum, the agreement on a sentence lid reflects, at most, a defendant’s expectation that the prosecution may and probably will argue for a sentence at that level. But simply because a defendant can anticipate the prosecutor will likely argue that position at sentencing does not mean he necessarily agrees to that legal position. Unless the plea agreement expressly precludes a defense argument for a “sub-lid” sentence based on section 654, the defendant should not be held to such a “mutual understanding.”

 In the absence of any implication that the defense understood the lid or a higher sentence to be legally authorized, there can, of course, be no “mutual understanding” implied in the agreement. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 768.) But even the majority’s claim that a prosecutor offering a sentence lid must believe the lid to be authorized is flawed. The majority argues that “[i]f the prosecutor understood or believed that the trial court lacked authority to impose the lid sentence, there would be no utility or benefit to specifying that particular length of time as the maximum sentence.” {Ibid.) The prosecutor, however, seeks no benefit from the sentence lid; he or she offers it as an inducement to the defense’s acceptance of the agreement. And, as we have seen, the defense may find the sentence lid an attractive term even if convinced the law does not permit any longer sentence to be imposed. As the defense might value the certainty of a specified maximum, the prosecution might offer such a maximum as inducement regardless of either side’s belief about what the legal sentence limit should ultimately be.